Another week of Travelin’Oma assignments. Week 2, Day 1. I was looking forward to this all weekend.
Jobs I would love.
There are so many jobs that I would just love to have. Where do I start?
A university professor. I absolutely loved teaching at BYU. There were many parts that were challenging (mostly politics and whiny students), but it was so rewarding. I love to drink in the atmosphere on campus – any campus. Walking around and seeing students scurrying to their next class or study group makes me want to go and join them, no matter where they are headed, and just be a fly on the wall while learning is taking place. Assigning meaningful homework, responding to struggling students, and enabling those “Aha!” moments, is a mighty powerful thing.
A secretary. Okay, I know this may sound boring to many, but this is one of my very favorite jobs. I just love being as efficient as possible and helping to make everything run smoother. I love ordering the office supplies and carefully placing them in the well-organized cupboards, just keeping the tools that the employees need readily available at all times. I love going above and beyond the front desk duties to find all of those random projects that people are reminded of every time they look in that drawer, closet, or cupboard, but it is a waste of their time to remedy the situation. The list goes on and on. Ooh, I get excited just thinking about it!
An employee at a used bookstore. I would relish going to work each day, entering the store and breathing in the smell of books. I would wander around the store in free moments, randomly selecting a tome off the shelf and leafing through it, reading a page here and there to be able to more fully assist customers in a mood for a specific type of book. Knowing where each volume could be found and leading an anticipating patron to the jewel they have been searching to find for days, months, or years.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
And the winner is...
Debby.
Thanks for playing. She didn't get them all, but she was closest. And she's already claimed her prize.
Here are the answers in order:
1) And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle
2) Exodus by Leon Uris
3) To Catch a Spy by Amelia Elizabeth Walden
4) Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L'Engle
5) These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
Thanks for playing. She didn't get them all, but she was closest. And she's already claimed her prize.
Here are the answers in order:
1) And Both Were Young by Madeleine L'Engle
2) Exodus by Leon Uris
3) To Catch a Spy by Amelia Elizabeth Walden
4) Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L'Engle
5) These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
Friday, September 4, 2009
Okay To Be Me
Another assignment (Week 1 Day 5) for the class through the Travelin’Oma blog.
Okay to be me.
I remember very clearly the first time that I felt that it was okay to be me.
All through junior high and high school there was a girl that I admired and I thought she was perfect. I was sure that if I just looked like her, talked like her, and acted like her, everyone would adore me. I would be a coveted friend as well as the girl of every boy’s dreams – if only I could be her instead of me. There were others that I felt similarly about, but none so much as her. This feeling plagued me for several years until I was a junior in high school. Every time I saw her, I thought about how sad I was that I could never be just like her, no matter how hard I tried. Then one day I saw her walking down the hall and sighed to myself as I contemplated how much I wanted to be her. At that moment, two boys standing next to me commented to each other that they didn’t think she was that cute. Shocked, I blurted out, “You really don’t think she’s cute?” I wasn’t even thinking about how I had been eavesdropping and not really invited to hear this observation in the first place. However, they didn’t seem to mind and replied, “No, she’s not that cute at all!”
I had a revelation at that moment. The “ideal” in my mind was not necessarily the ideal for everyone. In fact, it occurred to me that there is not one single person on this earth that everyone else thinks is beautiful, kind, witty, and generally desirable. Not even movie stars. Not even this girl that I had idolized for years. So, since there is no way to please everyone, why not be happy being who you are? This was so liberating for me and I finally felt okay just being me. I still had things I didn’t necessarily love about myself and many goals of things I wanted to do differently. But it felt good to not be anyone else at that moment and just be myself.
Okay to be me.
I remember very clearly the first time that I felt that it was okay to be me.
All through junior high and high school there was a girl that I admired and I thought she was perfect. I was sure that if I just looked like her, talked like her, and acted like her, everyone would adore me. I would be a coveted friend as well as the girl of every boy’s dreams – if only I could be her instead of me. There were others that I felt similarly about, but none so much as her. This feeling plagued me for several years until I was a junior in high school. Every time I saw her, I thought about how sad I was that I could never be just like her, no matter how hard I tried. Then one day I saw her walking down the hall and sighed to myself as I contemplated how much I wanted to be her. At that moment, two boys standing next to me commented to each other that they didn’t think she was that cute. Shocked, I blurted out, “You really don’t think she’s cute?” I wasn’t even thinking about how I had been eavesdropping and not really invited to hear this observation in the first place. However, they didn’t seem to mind and replied, “No, she’s not that cute at all!”
I had a revelation at that moment. The “ideal” in my mind was not necessarily the ideal for everyone. In fact, it occurred to me that there is not one single person on this earth that everyone else thinks is beautiful, kind, witty, and generally desirable. Not even movie stars. Not even this girl that I had idolized for years. So, since there is no way to please everyone, why not be happy being who you are? This was so liberating for me and I finally felt okay just being me. I still had things I didn’t necessarily love about myself and many goals of things I wanted to do differently. But it felt good to not be anyone else at that moment and just be myself.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Can you guess?
From my Old Friends post, can you guess what my top five books are? Closest guesses will get a prize. Don't know what the prize is yet, but there will be one. Just put your guesses in the comments section of this post.
I'll post the answer tomorrow or the day after.
PS Bonus if you know which book matches with which description.
I'll post the answer tomorrow or the day after.
PS Bonus if you know which book matches with which description.
Loving Yourself
Another assignment (Week 1 Day 4) for the class through the TravelinOma blog.
Loving yourself.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
– Marianne Williamson*
The assignments for today caused me some minor discomfort. The two assignments I did were 1) to list 25 of your unique abilities and qualities, and 2) to list 10 things you love about your body. I found that I could comfortably and quickly come up with seven items for the first list and five for the second, and then I struggled. Why is it that we have such a hard time seeing ourselves as others do and as God does? This is a new goal for me. I have tried hard to see others in that way, but have not done as good of a job trying to see myself that way. Writing them down and stretching to complete the lists has helped and I hope to refer to these lists more often when I struggle to see as much value in myself.
*This quote has often been attributed to Nelson Mandela, but it is my understanding that it is actually by Marianne Williamson in her book A Return to Love
Loving yourself.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
– Marianne Williamson*
The assignments for today caused me some minor discomfort. The two assignments I did were 1) to list 25 of your unique abilities and qualities, and 2) to list 10 things you love about your body. I found that I could comfortably and quickly come up with seven items for the first list and five for the second, and then I struggled. Why is it that we have such a hard time seeing ourselves as others do and as God does? This is a new goal for me. I have tried hard to see others in that way, but have not done as good of a job trying to see myself that way. Writing them down and stretching to complete the lists has helped and I hope to refer to these lists more often when I struggle to see as much value in myself.
*This quote has often been attributed to Nelson Mandela, but it is my understanding that it is actually by Marianne Williamson in her book A Return to Love
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Old Friends
Another assignment (Week 1 Day 3) for the class through the TravelinOma blog.
Old friends.
Glancing around the room I see many of my old friends. As I look at each one I am reminded of fond memories I share with them. I reflect on each for a small moment before turning to the next.
Lightness and sweetness and always lifting my spirits.
Adventurous, strong, and complex.
Exciting and mysterious, no matter how long we have known each other.
Deep. Thoughtful. Wise. Teaching me so many new things each time we meet.
Warm and reassuring, even during the hard times.
When I need comfort, I often turn to my favorite books. Each one is cherished for a different reason. Each has a special place in my heart.
Old friends.
Glancing around the room I see many of my old friends. As I look at each one I am reminded of fond memories I share with them. I reflect on each for a small moment before turning to the next.
Lightness and sweetness and always lifting my spirits.
Adventurous, strong, and complex.
Exciting and mysterious, no matter how long we have known each other.
Deep. Thoughtful. Wise. Teaching me so many new things each time we meet.
Warm and reassuring, even during the hard times.
When I need comfort, I often turn to my favorite books. Each one is cherished for a different reason. Each has a special place in my heart.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
How Travel Has Changed Me
I am taking a wonderful online class through the TravelinOma blog. Every day we have an assignment and here is mine for Week 1, Day 2. I am scared to ask for suggestions, but maybe let me know if one of my paragraphs or sentences is unclear or if I could structure it differently to make my points more effectively. I am trying to grow. I would also love positive comments (wouldn’t we all?) to encourage me in this endeavor if you find anything you particularly like.
How travel has changed me.
I believe that who you are is made up of all of the experiences you have had and your reactions to those experiences. Thus, who I am is at least partially a result of all the travelling I have done. But I think that the traveling experiences I have had make up a disproportionate part of me because of the great and lasting impact they have had. When I try to sort all of the memories, discoveries, and reflections of my travel, and how they have changed me, they fell naturally into four categories: confidence, relating to others, compassion, and adding context to my life.
I have not always been terrifically self-confident, but travelling has done amazing things to build my confidence. When I was 13 years old I travelled to Mexico with a group from school and toured around the Yucatan Peninsula for a week visiting ancient Mayan ruins and paying homage to other culturally important sites. At the end of the week we were in Cancun and we were given freedom to spend the last two or three days however we liked. My natural tendency was to do the “safe” thing and stay on the beach and read all day, but I felt empowered by the previous week and reached far out of my comfort zone to do things I never thought I could do at the age of 13. I, knowing very little Spanish, communicated with a non-English speaking local to figure out the public transportation system and rode the bus with some fellow students to a small, off the tourist path, village market some distance away and spent the morning bartering in broken Spanish to acquire some souvenirs to bring home with me. (As a side note, I still have a beautiful onyx chess set that I bought that day.) The rest of the free days were spent in similarly uncharacteristic activities for me and it felt glorious. I felt as though I had a secret when I came home – the secret was that I was capable of more than I had dreamed and capable of more than others expected of me. This confidence, and the confidence gained in my years of travelling since, has affected not only those subsequent travels, but also the rest of my life as I have learned that I am capable of more than I thought in many other arenas besides travel.
One goal that I continually strive toward achieving is to gain enough knowledge about enough different things that I can comfortably converse with anyone I come into contact with about things that are important to them. Even if I only know enough to ask questions about a topic to open them up, that is helpful. Travelling has exposed me to many kinds of people, political ideas, historical references, and the list could go on and on. This allows me to have a basis with which to make connections with others. A few weeks ago I was visiting with a recently widowed woman who lives in my neighborhood and I noticed that she was wearing a shirt that had Hebrew writing on it. I asked her about it and mentioned that I had been to Israel on a study abroad several years ago and she opened up and told me all about how her husband had taken her there a few years ago since it had always been a dream of hers to visit the Holy Land. I was so glad that I had enough experiences through that study abroad to talk with her about a memory so valuable to her and for her to know how important it was to me as well. It can be very rewarding to see how meaningful it is to others to have someone relate to them and have common ground on which to begin building a relationship.
Meeting people of different cultures and ideas, no matter where I am in the world, increases my compassion, love, and understanding of the other children of God on this earth. When I started to see that most people live quietly, doing the best they can with what they have, my love for those around me increased and I was more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt if I was tempted to judge. When I watch the news (which admittedly is pretty seldom), I see faces of people and not just a news story. I have seen those who have suffered on both sides of a conflict and it makes the solution not so black and white. I pray for those whose story hasn’t been told and who are suffering and trying to survive. I hope that in the years to come I will continue to feel a greater compassion for all those with whom I come in contact and that I will always remain grateful for the lessons that they teach me.
As an educator, I feel that we all learn best when we are able to make connections between the new things that we are learning and the knowledge and understanding that we have already gained. The more knowledge and understanding that we have, the easier it is to make connections to what we are trying to learn and the easier it is to retain the new knowledge we are gaining. This is giving a context to the new things we learn. Travel has helped me develop a much more extensive context with which to understand the new experiences that I have every day. To be able to connect my new experiences with the things I have learned through my travels, I am able to remember and retain more of the things I have a chance to glean from life on a daily basis.
Travelling is one of my favorite things to do. However, this is largely the case because of how it changes my life in small and meaningful ways and not because of the big glamorous buildings I see or the fabulous beaches I swim on. I hope it may continue to shape who I am in the years to come.
How travel has changed me.
I believe that who you are is made up of all of the experiences you have had and your reactions to those experiences. Thus, who I am is at least partially a result of all the travelling I have done. But I think that the traveling experiences I have had make up a disproportionate part of me because of the great and lasting impact they have had. When I try to sort all of the memories, discoveries, and reflections of my travel, and how they have changed me, they fell naturally into four categories: confidence, relating to others, compassion, and adding context to my life.
I have not always been terrifically self-confident, but travelling has done amazing things to build my confidence. When I was 13 years old I travelled to Mexico with a group from school and toured around the Yucatan Peninsula for a week visiting ancient Mayan ruins and paying homage to other culturally important sites. At the end of the week we were in Cancun and we were given freedom to spend the last two or three days however we liked. My natural tendency was to do the “safe” thing and stay on the beach and read all day, but I felt empowered by the previous week and reached far out of my comfort zone to do things I never thought I could do at the age of 13. I, knowing very little Spanish, communicated with a non-English speaking local to figure out the public transportation system and rode the bus with some fellow students to a small, off the tourist path, village market some distance away and spent the morning bartering in broken Spanish to acquire some souvenirs to bring home with me. (As a side note, I still have a beautiful onyx chess set that I bought that day.) The rest of the free days were spent in similarly uncharacteristic activities for me and it felt glorious. I felt as though I had a secret when I came home – the secret was that I was capable of more than I had dreamed and capable of more than others expected of me. This confidence, and the confidence gained in my years of travelling since, has affected not only those subsequent travels, but also the rest of my life as I have learned that I am capable of more than I thought in many other arenas besides travel.
One goal that I continually strive toward achieving is to gain enough knowledge about enough different things that I can comfortably converse with anyone I come into contact with about things that are important to them. Even if I only know enough to ask questions about a topic to open them up, that is helpful. Travelling has exposed me to many kinds of people, political ideas, historical references, and the list could go on and on. This allows me to have a basis with which to make connections with others. A few weeks ago I was visiting with a recently widowed woman who lives in my neighborhood and I noticed that she was wearing a shirt that had Hebrew writing on it. I asked her about it and mentioned that I had been to Israel on a study abroad several years ago and she opened up and told me all about how her husband had taken her there a few years ago since it had always been a dream of hers to visit the Holy Land. I was so glad that I had enough experiences through that study abroad to talk with her about a memory so valuable to her and for her to know how important it was to me as well. It can be very rewarding to see how meaningful it is to others to have someone relate to them and have common ground on which to begin building a relationship.
Meeting people of different cultures and ideas, no matter where I am in the world, increases my compassion, love, and understanding of the other children of God on this earth. When I started to see that most people live quietly, doing the best they can with what they have, my love for those around me increased and I was more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt if I was tempted to judge. When I watch the news (which admittedly is pretty seldom), I see faces of people and not just a news story. I have seen those who have suffered on both sides of a conflict and it makes the solution not so black and white. I pray for those whose story hasn’t been told and who are suffering and trying to survive. I hope that in the years to come I will continue to feel a greater compassion for all those with whom I come in contact and that I will always remain grateful for the lessons that they teach me.
As an educator, I feel that we all learn best when we are able to make connections between the new things that we are learning and the knowledge and understanding that we have already gained. The more knowledge and understanding that we have, the easier it is to make connections to what we are trying to learn and the easier it is to retain the new knowledge we are gaining. This is giving a context to the new things we learn. Travel has helped me develop a much more extensive context with which to understand the new experiences that I have every day. To be able to connect my new experiences with the things I have learned through my travels, I am able to remember and retain more of the things I have a chance to glean from life on a daily basis.
Travelling is one of my favorite things to do. However, this is largely the case because of how it changes my life in small and meaningful ways and not because of the big glamorous buildings I see or the fabulous beaches I swim on. I hope it may continue to shape who I am in the years to come.
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