Nothing and Too Much to Say

CN Blue - 사랑빛 (Lovelight)

Have you ever thought too much? I liken the feeling to trying to untangle a ball of yarn. The more you try to straighten everything out, the more tangled and complicated it all gets until you just want to hurl the whole mess as far away from you as you possibly can. The upshot of the whole thing is that even though I have so much on my mind, I really have nothing to say. Only old problems getting hashed and rehashed in my head until I just want to cover my ears, jump up and down, and scream. Unfortunately, that's not very productive. It doesn't accomplish much at all. Or anything, for that matter.

Recently I've been wondering why I'm here in Logan. Academically, obviously I'm here to finish school (finally!), but the thing about life is there's never just one reason for anything. Take SJC for example. Ostensibly I went to Annapolis to fulfill a dream I'd had since high school of attending St. John's. But I think the real reason I went there was to have the experiences I needed to decide to go on a mission, which was an important part of my development and growth as a person. And of course I met many wonderful people who have influenced me in many positive ways. Not to mention I gained a unique kind of education that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else or in any other way. And I fell in love with the East Coast and its sense of history. I learned a lot from my years in Annapolis. So...why am I here at USU? What am I supposed to be learning from this experience? Maybe it's too early to tell. After all, I didn't move to Annapolis expecting any of the outcomes that actually arose. Maybe my problem is that I moved here with certain expectations and those things haven't happened. I thought I was coming here for one reason and maybe that's not the reason at all. But then, what is it? I wish I knew. 

What Is to Come

Fall has been lovely this year. It's hard to believe that it's the middle of November; it's been unusually warm and bright this year. Green leaves have lingered on the trees far longer than I can ever remember them doing so before. Of course, I've mostly experienced it through the window, since I spend the majority of my time at home with B, but I still appreciate the sunny days and the splendid view outside.

It's hard to imagine that five weeks from now I'll be leaving this area for good, at least for the foreseeable future. (What a funny phrase that is -- how much of the future is actually foreseeable? None of it, really.) I'm not really thrilled about starting all over -- again. In the last five years, since I left home to come to SJC, I haven't lived in the same four walls for longer than six or seven months. Moving yet again isn't exactly thrilling, as I said, but hopefully I can stay in one place for at least a year and a half this time, while I (finally!!) finish up my undergraduate degree. I've even decided not to reapply for the CLS program and try to go back to Korea next summer, which I would love.

I'm nervous about starting over, honestly. I don't think I'm good at making good first impressions, or friends, for that matter. I think I am a good friend, at least I try to be, but I always find the initial stages very difficult. I think part of it is that I lack confidence that I'm an interesting person, someone that other people would voluntarily choose to be around. It's amazing how far-reaching the effects of a few years and some bad experiences in elementary and middle school can have. Plus, being a 24-year-old junior in college, when most people my age have already graduated and gone on to jobs or graduate school or families, doesn't exactly make me feel better.

But I am grateful to be moving closer to my extended family. It's been a decade since I've lived in Utah, and almost four years since I've been back; it will be good to see my cousins, uncles and aunts, and grandparents again, and more regularly. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to save money and help my grandparents out at the same time, as well as the chance to be in a place where the influence of the Church is strong, learn about my family history, and take the time to learn about Church history more thoroughly. Not to mention, I have the chance to study what I want to study. (Though sadly, despite Korean being in the USU catalog, they don't actually offer those classes at the moment.) Who knows what other opportunities lie waiting for me to discover them?

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.))