Mixtape

My life and thoughts this past semester set to "song."  I encourage you to make one of your own!

                                  

Summer

Three years down, one to go!   Had my last final exam this morning.  This was actually not a terribly stressful semester, but of course it's a relief to have finally finished everything.  I've been ready to go home for a while, but now that the school component is over I'm glad to have a few days here on campus to relax, maybe set up my hammock outside and take a nap if it stays nice, and to see some of my friends graduate.  Once I do get home, I'll have about five weeks there before heading to Graz, Austria for the rest of the summer.  I have an internship at Graz University of Technology working in a Chemistry lab.  I don't know yet what project I'll be working on, but I'm so excited both for gaining some research experience and for the fact that I'll also get to do some traveling.  I have never traveled by myself before, so it'll be an adventure.  I'm planning to spend part of my time in May working on my currently nonexistent German (don't worry, everything in the lab is in English...).  And I'm open to hearing ideas of awesome things to do in/around Austria!

MissRepresentation

Last night I went over to JMU for a screening of the movie Miss Representation.  It was all about the portrayal of women in media today, and while it was enlightening, it left me feeling depressed about the state of our society.  It's hard to summarize the film's message without just going on a rant, but it talked about everything from violence against women to the fact that very few movies have female protagonists (and when they do, the main goal is finding love, from a man of course) to the need for good female role models to how this relates to hypermasculinity and men's "emotional constipation," as someone put it afterwards.  One of the main points was the extent to which even accomplished, powerful women are judged so much on their appearance as opposed to what they've done with their lives.  Some of the clips of newscasters and such really made me wonder how people can get away with saying the things they do.  I know I hear a lot of questionable comments and let them slip without thinking much of it, but some of the examples were absolutely blatant sexism.  Made me feel like such an angry feminist.  It was a very good reminder that there is no reason the degradation of women needs to be acceptable or ordinary.

Watch the extended trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5pM1fW6hNs

Hafiz: With That Moon Language

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them,
     "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud;
Otherwise,
Someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this,
This great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one
Who lives with a full moon in each eye
That is always saying
With that sweet moon
     Language
What every other eye in this world
     Is dying to
     Hear.

Sock

I just finished knitting my first sock ever.  I'm in awe of the power to create; I can't help but wear it this evening even though it's only one.  Why don't we create things more often?

Integrate! Create!

Tonight I went to a seminar on creativity and education.  We started out by drawing pictures of our "playgrounds" as children and now and then moved on to talk about art as a means for both gathering and expressing information.  One of the things that came up was the idea that we're too often taught to regurgitate information instead of being taught how to create.  It's an interesting concept for me as a science major, especially considering the classes I have this semester.  I've got my organic chemistry, physics, and quantum mechanics on the one hand, and then I have a class on wisdom and a colloquium course on using the body and the "felt sense" to learn and make decisions and navigate the world.  I can see art and creativity playing a role in the wisdom and colloquium classes, but it's a lot harder for me to envision it in my actual field of study.  At this point at least, there's a lot of memorizing and understanding previous knowledge before I can do any real creation or discovery of my own.  But now this question of integration is in my mind again.  It's come up before, like on cross-cultural when I was considering how everything I learned in Guatemala and Mexico would apply to life here.  It comes up when I think about how much I love art and Spanish and building relationships and I question how any of those things could possibly relate to a future career in science.  It comes up when I try to figure out if or how my faith impacts the rest of my life.  It comes up when I get tired of school and wonder if it isn't really the parts of college that seemingly have nothing to do with what I learn in class that are most important.  All that to say I hope to come up with some creative ways to put together the pieces.

Goals

This semester was all about balance for me.  It's often a challenge to make choices about how to use my time, and I don't anticipate that getting any easier.  But here's a check-in with the goals I set at the beginning of the semester:

"Ask someone (or multiple someones) out on a date."  Well, hm, this went a little differently than I expected.  I now have a boyfriend, which did involve some asking on my part, but I didn't exactly do much to change the dating culture at EMU, which was the original purpose. Let's just say I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, but the goal of getting to know people more intentionally still stands.  

"Dumpster dive!!"  Only a few times, but yes!  Getting random ingredients from the dumpster inspires me to be more creative with cooking.  I'm looking forward to more of this next semester.  

"Spend just as much time in other people's apartments as my own."  Not even close.  

"Meet some freshmen/transfers."  Mmm, yeah, a few.  Still, not eating in the caf very regularly means there's a much bigger percentage of people I don't even recognize than in previous years.  

"Do crazy awesome research."  Got some water sampling data and finally feel like that project is on its feet and I know what I'm doing.  Also, killed some goldfish in the name of science.  

"Find and apply to some internships for next summer."  Gahhh.  I've looked.  And I've been overwhelmed.  The problem is that I want an internship in order to help me find out what I'm interested in (or not), but a lot of them are such specific projects that you kind of have to know going in what you want to do.  Anyway, I'm hoping to have more time to devote to this during Christmas break.  

"Cook at least five completely new dishes."  Oh yeah.  Success.  

"Get involved in one new thing on or off campus."  EMSWA (Eastern Mennonite Student Women's Association) is one of the highlights of my week.  It's just great.  And I've been semi-involved in a few other new things too.  

"Make time for God."  Not really.  I should probably write God into my planner.  

"Give freely."  Not sure how to evaluate this one, but again, I'd most likely say not really.  The good thing about not meeting all my goals is that I still have something to do with the rest of my life...