Welcome Back, AnnMarie!

Today is my first Saturday as a college student in over two years. I can hardly believe it! I'm so excited to be back. I'm even almost excited to be swamped with homework this weekend, too. (Almost.) It is weird not being in class with the people I know, though. In that way, it's kind of like being a freshman all over again, but it's nice that I get to see my friends at all. My friends who went on missions from the Naval Academy came back to most of the people they knew being gone altogether. So I'll count my blessings and be glad that I get to see so many of my friends again.

Move-in was Tuesday. Boy! It took me five trips to get everything from the apartment I was staying in to my new dorm room, and I had to haul everything up two flights of very steep stairs to boot. Thankfully, on the fourth trip (that was my very heavy suitcases) a girl sitting on a bench at the top of the hill saw me and came running down the walk to ask if she could help me. She then proceeded to haul my suitcase all the up the hill, to my dorm, and then to my actual room -- and she did it in two-inch heels. I was very impressed, and very thankful, too. Her name was Lydia, and she's a sophomore, so maybe I'll see her again. In any case, I hope something very nice happens to her this week.

a blurry shot of my dorm room

Our first class of the year is always seminar, our history/philosophy/literature class. This year, being a sophomore, I started with Genesis 1-11. It was an interesting class discussion; we spent most of the time hung up on what it means to be naked, and why Adam and Eve would eat the forbidden fruit and then hide themselves because they were naked. We didn't even get to talk about Noah and the flood at all, or even the Tower of Babel. The whole time, I was so grateful for the light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and for the fact that I didn't have to worry about not having the answers to these questions. Because of restored truth, I don't have to worry about the seeming contradictions in the creation stories of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. I don't have to worry that (supposedly) God seems to be different in those chapters, or wonder why the snake was even talking to Eve in the first place. I know what it means that Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God. I know that the Fall wasn't an accident, but a necessary piece of a larger plan, created so that we can return to our Heavenly Father and become like Him, and live with our families forever (see this website for a more complete explanation). And I'm grateful for my experience as a missionary, because it gave me the patience and the perspective I needed to make it through that discussion without becoming discouraged or getting angry. Ah, the Lord really does know what He's about, and He prepares us for the trials we will face in our lives.

Next time: Why Greek and I don't get along so well after two intervening years studying Korean.

Little Things That Make Me Happy

My freshman year at St. John's, I decided to make a list of 101 "simple things" that make me happy. It was a great experience, and rereading it makes me smile and lifts my hearts every time. I thought today that I'd make a short list of the simple, post-mission things that make me happy.

sunsets

small children playing

cranberry juice

hugs

"How thankful I am, how thankful we all must be, for the women in our lives."

-- President Gordon B. Hinckley

This article is a sobering look at the challenges facing women and girls today, especially in developing countries. I hope that you will take the time to read it; I think it will change how you think of the challenges in your own life. Find the article here at the New York Times. When you've had a chance to read it, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Meanwhile, here's a little something to whet your curiosity. 

"Traditionally, the status of women was seen as a “soft” issue — worthy but marginal. We initially reflected that view ourselves in our work as journalists. We preferred to focus instead on the “serious” international issues, like trade disputes or arms proliferation. Our awakening came in China.

"After we married in 1988, we moved to Beijing to be correspondents for The New York Times. Seven months later we found ourselves standing on the edge of Tiananmen Square watching troops fire their automatic weapons at prodemocracy protesters. The massacre claimed between 400 and 800 lives and transfixed the world; wrenching images of the killings appeared constantly on the front page and on television screens.

"Yet the following year we came across an obscure but meticulous demographic study that outlined a human rights violation that had claimed tens of thousands more lives. This study found that 39,000 baby girls died annually in China because parents didn’t give them the same medical care and attention that boys received — and that was just in the first year of life. A result is that as many infant girls died unnecessarily every week in China as protesters died at Tiananmen Square. Those Chinese girls never received a column inch of news coverage, and we began to wonder if our journalistic priorities were skewed.

"A similar pattern emerged in other countries. In India, a “bride burning” takes place approximately once every two hours, to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry — but these rarely constitute news. When a prominent dissident was arrested in China, we would write a front-page article; when 100,000 girls were kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn’t even consider it news." 

-- Kristoff and WuDunn in Half the Sky

read the whole article

Knowing things like this happen in the world only makes me more grateful for the light of the restored Gospel -- and with it, the knowledge that the Lord knows and loves each and every one of His daughters just as much as He loves His sons. Truly, in the eyes of God, there is no inequality between the genders; that rests in the eyes of humanity alone.

Want some further reading on the subject? See what a prophet of God has said about the women in our lives, and what the Lord has told His children about the family.

A Week Out

A week ago today I left home for the third time in three years. I must say, I was much more excited about it when I left three years ago than I was this time around. But when I got here this last Sunday evening after visiting with my aunt for the weekend, I was happy to be "home".

Truly, I've greatly missed Annapolis and all her charms. I'd forgotten how different the East Coast is from the South. The pace is different. The people are different. Part of that is because I live in a huge tourist attraction; and especially this time of year, there are tourists crawling all around downtown Annapolis. (Thankfully most of them avoid SJC -- I guess we're not as "cool" as the Naval Academy. Or at least we're not as impressive to look at, lacking the sharp, tailored uniforms of the midshipmen.) Of course, some of that can be accounted for in the disparate sizes of Annapolis and Martin -- Annapolis is more than five times the size of Martin -- but some of it definitely is an intangible air that comes with being more than 300 years old and surrounded by the Chesapeake. And of course, there's the veneer and subtle arrogance of wealth here that is noticeably lacking in a small town.

Last night I had an hour-and-a-half-long discussion with my roommate that would have sent most people screaming from the room after only fifteen minutes, assuming they could have made heads or tails of what we were talking about. Ah, Johnnies! What a breed apart you are -- not because you're necessarily any better, but because you're so deliciously different from the rest of the world. Where else could you debate Kant's principle of non-contradiction at eleven-thirty at night? Where else would someone under the age of forty even know what that was? Where else would you find 18- and 20-year-olds more likely to be discussing the philosophies of long-dead Greeks than the latest Hollywood gossip? Where else would you find students willing to go to class at eight pm, and voluntarily go to a lecture on Friday night? There's not much of the practical and concrete at SJC, but that's one of the reasons I love it. There's a dark side to it, too, but for today I'm content to just enjoy the bright side.

(And thank you to this website for the pictures of the Naval Academy (top) and St. John's (bottom, it's the dorm where I used to live.))

New Beginnings and Lots of Painful Goodbyes

You'd think, after going to seven different schools in thirteen years, going off to college not only once but twice, and serving a mission in a country halfway around the world, I'd be good at packing everything up and heading out into the unknown.

You'd think that, but what d'ya know, it's still as hard this time as it was the first time.

I think it gets harder as I get older because when I pack up and head out into the unknown, I don't have my family right there with me. I miss seeing my little brother go off to kindergarten, I miss my sister's second-grade projects, I miss even getting to spend the last few weeks with my sister before she gets married. As much as I know it's right and good for me to have my own experiences, it's hard to leave my family. I've always been a homebody, and I probably always will be. It's a similar dilemma to the one I wrote about last time -- I want to travel 'round the world having adventures and learning new things...and yet, I really just want to stay home and watch my siblings grow up.

Being grown up is not as much fun as people make it out to be.