I call this my Victory Series: Announcing that I'm official DONE with my undergrad!

This is me on my very last day of classes, 26 April, going into my last college class.

This is me today, right before my very last undergraduate final EVER.

And this is me afterwards. I mean, I guess I'm happy or something. Or something. Yeah.

And this is what I did to celebrate. I call it The Taste of Accomplishment.

Full-blown panic is starting to set in.




Three more days, three more tests, and one more paper to graduation.

A Letter to My Grandfather

Dear Grandpa,

I've thought about writing this letter a hundred times, but I never was ready to put it all on paper. (Well, metaphorically speaking.) It's hard for me to believe that this time a year ago I was saying goodbye to you for the very last time in this life.

A whole year. 365 days -- 366, actually, since this year was a leap year (Aunt Catherine had a birthday this year!); a whole lot of hours and minutes and seconds have passed since then. I'm not particularly prone to attaching a lot of sentiment to the anniversaries of things, but a year seems like a significant amount of time.

When you died, it was hard for me to believe that you were really gone, at first. No one close to me had ever died before; it was my first time really experiencing death. It was harder because I never really got to say goodbye, not really. The last time I really saw you was General Conference weekend, when Grandma invited Aunt Suzanne and her family and me and Stephen over for a post-conference dinner of store-bought muffins and apple juice. We sat around the table and laughed so hard our stomachs ached when Heather told us the story about that kid who was determined to catch the feral sheep. I know I must have said, "Goodbye!" and "I love you!" when I left, because I always do, but I don't remember. I probably even gave you a hug; you're a great hugger. I think you passed that on to Dad, he always squeezes me just the way you used to. So many times in the last year I've thought about how great it would be if I could just hop in my car and drive down the street and ask for a hug on days when I was feeling down, or discouraged, or just lonely. For the first few days and weeks I had to consciously remind myself that you weren't there at the house with Grandma anymore, and each time I did it brought a wave of sadness crashing right back over me.

I was so angry at you. I still am, a little. It's so stupid, and it seems so pointless. It was your own stubborn fault for not taking better care of yourself, for not going to the doctor right away when you started feeling a little "off". You left Grandma all alone barely four months before the family reunion to celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary that Grandma had been planning for over a year. You left before my dad got to see you again, and I know how much that hurts him. You left right as I was starting to wonder about what I was going to do when I graduated in a year, right when I really needed all your years of wisdom from working at the university and your priesthood blessings and your hugs and teasing jokes.

I don't doubt the Lord called you back to Him. I was angry at Him, too, even, which is much more befitting a child than a supposedly-mature adult. I just didn't understand why then, of all times. But then why does anything happen when it does? I suppose that's why I'm not in charge and He is.

If I've learned anything from this, it's that there truly must be an afterlife for the souls of men, and that they are not wholly ignorant of us here. I know you'll be there when I get my diploma, and when I get married, and when I see my children for the first time. And I know you'll be standing there with my dad when my children's father (whoever he is -- maybe you can give him a nudge in my direction for me) gives them a name and a blessing, and you'll laugh at me the first time I say something to my child I swore I'd never say because I hated hearing it from my parents (probably something about "privileges" or "consequences"). I know you'll be there when my dad holds his little grandkids on his lap to tell them a Bob and Steve story; he's a little rusty, you might have to prompt him. And I know that one day I'll get to see you again, and best of all, get a great big, squeezy grandpa hug.

I'm counting on that.

Love,
AnnMarie

Some words I needed to hear

I read this this morning at my breakfast table, and I was struck by how much it applies to me at this point in my life.


"One of my favorite scriptural accounts that illustrates this important principle is found in Matthew chapter 14. As the disciples watched the Savior walk on the Sea of Galilee toward their boat, they thought they were seeing a ghost. Jesus assured them that it was He and that they need not be afraid. Peter declared, “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water” (verse 28). Jesus said, “Come.” Matthew then records, “And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus” (see Matthew 14:24–29).

The rest of the story is what I find most significant. I can’t relate to walking on water, but I can relate to what Peter experienced next:

“But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

“And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

“And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

“Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God” (Matthew 14:30–33).

All of us have had, are having, or will yet have a Peter-like “sinking” experience in some way and will at some time (probably many times) cry out, “Lord, save me.” Even Peter’s strong fisherman arms were not strong enough to save him. He needed the rescuing arms of Christ, and so do we. Can you imagine Peter—choking, his head bobbing beneath the surface of the water—saying as the Savior extends His arms: “No, thank you. I will swim to shore. I sank myself, so I must save myself”? Of course not. How ridiculous! Yet we sometimes do just that.

We may know in our heads that our mortal arms and hands are deficient—in fact, utterly incapable of rescuing or redeeming us—but we sometimes resist, even recoil from, the outstretched arms of the Savior. Sometimes we spiritually drown ourselves because we won’t allow His arms to cradle us. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve eloquently stated:

“May I be bold enough to suggest that it is impossible for anyone who really knows God to doubt his willingness to receive us with open arms in a divine embrace if we will but ‘come unto Him.’ …

“I am convinced that none of us can appreciate how deeply it wounds the loving heart of the Savior of the world when he finds that his people do not feel confident in his care or secure in his hands.”"

From "The Loving Arms of Christ", April 2012 Engsin

Introducing my room

I've lived in my new place for almost three months now, and I realized the other day that I've yet to introduce it to you. So here's my bedroom. It's messy and lived in, but that's the way I like it.

If you look closely, you can see Kim Soo-hyun on my computer screen. It's one of his shots from the pictorial in Singles Magazine. Click here and you can see it.

This is the view into my room from the doorway.

Pooh is the best man in the whole world. He's snuggly, he never hogs the covers, and he sleeps right next to me ever night without complaint.

This is the pile of books next to my bed. The pictures a little old (the pile's grown), but this gives you a pretty good idea of what I spend my time reading.

Daily inspiration

"Behold, great and marvelous are the works of the Lord. How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man knoweth of his ways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the revelations of God. For behold, by the power of his word man came upon the face of the earth, which earth was created by the power of his word. Wherefore, if God being able to speak and the world was, and to speak and man was created, O then, why not able to command the earth, or the workmanship of his hands upon the face of it, according to his will and pleasure? Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works."

Jacob 4:8-10 
emphasis added

Being Employed Is Fun to Do, Or How I Got the Job

Perhaps you've heard the news? That's right - I'm employed!

Let me tell you, it is such a nice feeling. Being employed has far more perks than simply getting a paycheck. Being employed means my parents, my grandmas, and everyone else will stop asking me how the job search is going. It means that every day I have to be up and ready to be out the door by 715. It means that every day I get to help people and do something I'm passionate about. It means that every day I get to wake up with a sense of purpose and the knowledge that I'm going to accomplish something with my time. It means I wake up every day and dress like an adult instead of a college freshman. It also means I need to buy some new powder, new make-up remover, a new pair of slacks, and a pair of brown dress flats.

To be honest, I've been quite lazy about finding a job this last year (shocker, I know). When I first moved here last January, everything in my life had shifted around and turned upside down and the emotional stress of adjusting made me want to just hide in my room and watch dramas. It seemed like every time I got my act together enough to start looking for a job (which wasn't often), something big happened: my grandpa died, finals, I had to take my grandma to the emergency room and she was in the hospital for a week, my family came to visit, my other grandpa died, the new semester started, my grandma had a stroke and was in the hospital for a few days, I went home for Christmas break. And in between those big things there were papers and projects and homework and I was always "too busy". I was living a pretty easy life, or at least one I didn't have to pay a lot for, at my grandma's. And (it shames me to admit it) there was my refund check. Let's just sum all that up by saying I wasn't particularly motivated, though I felt guilty because I knew I should be.

Fast forward to last month. I'd moved out and was now paying rent and buying groceries, which obviously meant I was spending more money than I had been before. But I was still unemployed, and that was beginning to become a real problem. Fueled by panic, I started the job search in (semi-)ernest. I did some humbling and a lot of praying, accompanied by a spot of fasting. I checked the university's job boards every day. (The thing about college job boards is that they're usually looking for someone with specific skills or qualifications: web design, accounting, some kind of science, computer programming, a food handler's permit. I don't possess any of those skills of qualifications. In fact, there were no jobs for nice girls who write well, are willing to smile, and speak kdrama-enchanced Korean.) I know that networking is actually the most effective way to find a job, but networking scares the heebee jeebies out of me. And I wasn't really anxious to work at a call center or fast food joint. I wanted something that I could feel good about doing, something that would leave me with the knowledge that I'd improved someone's life. Fast food doesn't really do that for me.

One day about a week ago on the church's employment website, I ran across a listing for an ESL aide at one of the local high schools. I sent in an application, more to say I'd done something and not really expecting anything to come of it. Monday I was out in town running errands, then headed up to campus to visit the employment missionaries at the Institute. Somewhere in there I noticed that my phone had died, but didn't think much of it, because honestly, no one really ever calls me about anything important (not to say that your calls aren't important to me - they're just not usually very time-sensitive, is what I mean). When I got home and plugged in my phone, I discovered I'd gotten a call from the high school, asking if I could come in for a job interview the next day. It figures. The one time there's a truly important call, my phone dies. It's Murphy's Law.

Well, to make a longer story slightly shorter, after a night of less-than-swell sleep, I got up, got dressed up in my biggest big-girl clothes, did my make up, and waited on tenterhooks until my appointed interview time. I sent up several silent pleas to Heavenly Father than I would do my best in the interview, since I tend to get very nervous when meeting new people and when I get nervous I also get very literal and say silly things. But the interview seemed to go well - I met with the assistant principal and the two ESL teachers, and they were friendly and interested. I left with a feeling of having done my best, even if I didn't end up getting the job. I got home, changed my pants, and was about ready to head up to campus for class when I got a phone call from the assistant principal. I was the second-to-last person they interviewed, and even with my schedule restrictions, it was clear from the interview, he said, that they'd like to offer me the job.

And that's how yesterday, for the first time in almost seven years, I came to be at a high school early in the morning on a Friday.

Change from the inside out

"The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature."

President Ezra Taft Benson, "Born of God"

In a world that continues to protest "I was born that way, I can't help it" this message from a prophet of God is a clear witness that that is not true. There truly are things I was born with and that I can't change. I will never be taller, for instance. But I can become more patient. I can become kinder. I can become full of charity. I can become more refined and a better person. Anyone who says, "I was born that way, I can't help it" is merely abrogating their personal responsibility for something they don't want to deal with. I'm not saying that that means it will be easy; I've lived 25 years and I'm still not patient or forgiving. Some people have to struggle for a lifetime. But you can change, and that change will change the world. As we seek to implement all these programs and raise millions and billions of dollars to "fix" problems in "underprivileged" or "developing" nations, we should remember that. 

"The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment."

A few words of wisdom

Just a few things I learned this morning from my personal scripture study:

"In whatever manner the Lord may choose to bless us during the course of a mission, blessings of missionary service are not designed to end when we are released by our stake president. Your mission is a training ground for life. The experiences, lessons, and testimony obtained through faithful service are meant to provide a gospel-centered foundation that will last throughout mortality and into the eternities."

Elder W. Christopher Waddell, "The Opportunity of a Lifetime"

"Two are usually better than one, as our Father confirmed when He declared that “it was not good that the man should be alone” and made a help meet for Adam—someone with distinct gifts who would give him balance, help him shoulder the burdens of mortality, and enable him to do things he couldn’t do alone. For “neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.”

Satan understands the power of men and women united in righteousness. He is still stinging from his banishment into eternal exile after Michael led the hosts of heaven, comprised of valiant men and women united in the cause of Christ, against him. In the chilling words of Peter, “The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Lucifer is determined to devour marriages and families, because their demise threatens the salvation of all involved and the vitality of the Lord’s kingdom itself. Thus, Satan seeks to confuse us about our stewardships and distinctive natures as men and women. He bombards us with bizarre messages about gender, marriage, family, and all male-female relationships. He would have us believe men and women are so alike that our unique gifts are not necessary, or so different we can never hope to understand each other. Neither is true.

Our Father knew exactly what He was doing when He created us. He made us enough alike to love each other, but enough different that we would need to unite our strengths and stewardships to create a whole. Neither man nor woman is perfect or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage or family, no ward or stake is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, men and women work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying on each other's strengths."

Sister Sheri L. Dew, "It Is Not Good for Man or Woman to Be Alone"

Awwww, aren't my parents so cute? Still in love after 27 years of marriage.

Comfort

The world has been weighing heavily on my mind and heart lately. I'm sure if you've been reading this blog recently you know that the question of What Happens After Graduation has been on my mind a lot. That stress, plus the stress of trying to find a job for before graduation (you know, so I can pay my rent and feed myself and all that trivial stuff), some good ol' fashioned chemical and hormonal imbalances in my brain, and other random stressful things have all been wrecking havoc on my piece of mind.

Tonight after pouring my heart out in a rather desperate prayer, I felt prompted to open my scriptures, and this is what I read:

"HEARKEN unto the voice of the Lord your God, while I speak unto you . . . my daughter; for verily I say unto you, all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom.

"A revelation I give unto you concerning my will; and if thou art faithful and walk in the paths of virtue before me, I will preserve thy life, and thou shalt receive an inheritance in Zion.

"Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect lady, whom I have called.

"Murmur not because of the things which thou hast not seen, for they are withheld from thee and from the world, which is wisdom in me in a time to come."

Doctrine and Covenants 25:1-4

I'm grateful that the Lord has preserved His words so that we can read them today. I'm grateful that the Spirit can make those words, spoken in another time and place to another person, completely relevant and powerful to me in my life, just as if those words were spoken directly and solely to me. It seems a fantastical claim, but I know that it's true that God knows each and every one of His children - that would be all of mankind - intimately and personally. Furthermore, I know He has a plan for each of us, a plan meant to make us the best and the happiest we can be. And I know that by embracing the gospel and following that plan that "the best and the happiest we can be" is so much more than anything we could ever possibly imagine.

Forget-Me-Not

"Let us not walk the path of discipleship with our eyes on the ground, thinking only of the tasks and obligations before us. Let us not walk unaware of the beauty of the glorious earthly and spiritual landscapes that surround us. ...[S]eek out the majesty, the beauty, and the exhilarating joy of the “why” of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The “what” and “how” of obedience mark the way and keep us on the right path. The “why” of obedience sanctifies our actions, transforming the mundane into the majestic. It magnifies our small acts of obedience into holy acts of consecration."

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Forget Me Not
(emphasis added)

Unfortunately, I think I have forgotten this. Oh, not on an intellectual level, but on the gut level - the level where knowing it fundamentally changes your life. I've let earthly concerns crowd my mind until I want to curl up in a ball and just shut out everything meaningful and important. I resent the time it requires to do anything that takes me away from a state of curled-up-shutting-out-everything~ness: eating, exercising, doing homework, going to class...and all the little things I need to do to keep myself in tune with the Spirit and on the right track. Fortunately for my grade point average, I'm enough of a perfectionist to do just enough to get by pretty well in school, but "just enough" and "pretty well" don't cut it when it comes to spiritual things. 

[Source]: Photo here

Jane Eyre

Growing up, Jane Eyre was one of my favorite books. I don't remember how old I was when I first read it; probably about 12 or 13, since I was a voracious reader at that point. I read my mother's copy, one that was probably much older than I was. It had a dark pink cover and a painting of Jane running away from Thornfield Hall on the front. It's probably out of print now; anyway, I can't seem to find a picture of it online.

I saw the new movie with Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester over break, but I've been wanting to watch it again. I picked it up at the library when I was there the other day and rewatching it has confirmed that I'm pretty much in love with it. I loved Mia Wasikowska as Jane, and the soundtrack by Dario Martinelli (the same man who scored Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen) is superb. The track above is one of my favorites off the soundtrack. I think it suits the tone of the book exactly, capturing Jane's intelligence, passion, and restraint all at the same time, as well as her frustration at being trapped by her role as a women at her level of society.

Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennett and Anne Shirley were the heroines of my childhood, and still are today. There are many film adaptations of each of these women, but I hope that my girls - and maybe even my boys - will get to know them as I did, curled up on the couch with a book.

Needed:

One life goal.

'Cause lately, this is all I feel like doing. And it's not really getting me anywhere.




-EDIT- Just in case you were wondering...that is me at age three or four. (As if my pink blanket didn't give me away.)

The Paradox of Man

"[W]hile we may look at the vast expanse of the universe and say, “What is man in comparison to the glory of creation?” God Himself said we are the reason He created the universe! His work and glory—the purpose for this magnificent universe—is to save and exalt mankind. In other words, the vast expanse of eternity, the glories and mysteries of infinite space and time are all built for the benefit of ordinary mortals like you and me. Our Heavenly Father created the universe that we might reach our potential as His sons and daughters.

This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it."

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, You Matter to Him 
(emphasis added)

[Source]: Photo can be found here at universetoday.com

Minority / Majority

I wrote this essay for my Perspectives on Race class that I'm taking right now. It's an interesting class, for all that we mostly just sit around discussing the issue more than trying to find an answer. Which begs the question, Is there an answer? We were supposed to write about a time that we were a minority or a time we were discriminated against, so I chose to write about living in South Korea. We were supposed to keep it to two pages (it's a large class, over 80 people), but I could have written a lot more on the subject if I'd had the space. If I had written more, I think I would have included more about what I learned and discussed in greater detail the treatment I received while I was there. But here's what I did get written.



"It's hard to be a minority when you're white and middle-class and living in America. I was never “normal”, per se, but I didn't stick out too much if you just looked at me. Which is why moving to South Korea for a year and a half rocked my world so much.

The United States may seem like the bastion of white middle-class-ness, but compared to South Korea it's incredibly diverse ethnically and culturally. For the first time in my life, I was the outsider in every way it was possible to be outside the norm: I wasn't ethnically Asian, I didn't speak the language, I couldn't eat the food, and the culture was totally foreign to me. I couldn't walk the walk or talk the talk, and I definitely didn't look the look.



My time in Korea wasn't my first experience being a minority – I grew up in an LDS family smack dab in the middle of the small-town, Bible Belt American South – but it was the first time people stared at me before I opened my mouth. In fact, I didn't have to do anything other than exist to get looks, both covert and overt, as I walked down the street. I was used to being “strange” because of what I believed and certain things I did or didn't do, but I wasn't equipped to handle the curious stares and whispers that trailed in my wake. I had years of experience explaining myself and my religion to skeptical and sometimes even hostile listeners; but now I couldn't communicate more than a few halting sentences, and anyway how can you confront people for merely looking at you? What could I have said?

My initial reaction to being so utterly foreign was a crippling self-consciousness. I tried to comfort myself by telling myself that not everyone was staring, but the truth was most people were. I'm average height in America, but in Korea I'm on the tall side. My hair, though light brown, is naturally wavy instead of heavy and straight. Even bundled up against the cold as I was there was no mistaking my double-lidded green eyes, and the weak winter sun and harsh wind only made my skin paler and my cheeks redder. It didn't help that little old ladies would come up to me, fascinated, and pat me on the back. You look just like a doll! they'd exclaim, reaching up to run their fingers through my hair. Is it natural? they asked.



After a few weeks self-consciousness gave way to anger. Stop looking at me! I wanted to shout. I'm just minding my own business, riding the bus just like you. Have you never seen a white girl before?! But of course they probably hadn't, not up close, and so the anger never made it past my thoughts. In time, the anger faded into amusement and the amusement faded into indifference. The stares and the whispers, the pats and the questions and the exclamations – they were all just part of life. It became such a part of life that coming home and fitting in again was almost as much a shock as sticking out had been when I first got to Korea.

I wouldn't say that I was particularly prejudiced or close-minded before going to Korea, but my experience there had a profound effect on me. I know what it's like now to be the person that isn't like everybody else. I know what it feels like now to be lumped into a stereotype willy-nilly, with no thought for who I am as an individual. I know how it feels to tamp down on the annoyance or anger that bubbles up when people make off-hand comments casually condemning something about which they know nothing.



It would be a lie to say that I don't have stereotypes and biases of my own, but since my experience in Korea I have tried hard to judge people on their own merits. I resist expecting people to act according to what “everyone” says. I've made a concerted effort to realize that people sometimes have very different ways of approaching life and its problems, and to reserve judgement on people's actions until I've at least tried to see things from their perspective. The outcome of those efforts has been profoundly enlightening, and I have come to see the world in a very different way from how I once saw it.

I don't relish being a minority. I returned to Korea one summer after I'd been back to America for about a year, and on bad days that annoyance and anger would flare up again. It's not particularly enjoyable to be stared at and whispered about and pigeonholed into a certain stereotype, but my life has become so much richer for that experience. My life has changed for the better, and I have become a better person for it. I cannot claim to be wholly without prejudice or bias or stereotype, but I can now recognize more easily when I've allowed them to creep into my judgements or my perceptions of people. My experience as a minority certainly doesn't equate with those whose experiences have been lifelong and overwhelmingly negative, but I can try to empathize based on what's happened to me. But I think most importantly my experiences have left me with a need to reach out to others, to overcome those small things that separate us so that we can learn from each other. Because what makes us the same is so much more than what makes us different."