I’m breathing in all the words that you speak you think that you know, but you don’t know a thing

The pressures of the final week of classes and the stress of upcoming exams has me in a pensive mood lately. If there is something that I can deem "more worthwhile" than doing actual schoolwork, I will find it. So far, I have began a plan to read through the Bible in 90 days. I am somewhere around Exodus 15 (don't worry... I do have a bookmark) after beginning sometime last week. I have started researching possible options for grad school, and mind you, since starting college, I have sworn off grad school saying that after four years here I will be DONE WITH SCHOOL. Buuuut, taking Theological German and Theological Latin and Arabic just sounds so fun. And after a video in church about Compassion International, I have researched a possible internship at their office in Colorado. Andrew mentioned in history class a program in Cambridge where you could earn a certification to teach English as a Foreign Language in only a month... oh the possibilities of life after graduation! Goodbye American dream, and hello world!

It has been two months since I have last updated this blog. I would like to start writing more, but sometimes I just have too many ideas and not enough actual desire to write about them. I am beginning to realize though that I enjoy blogs more than I do Facebook. Since a few days before last Sunday, I have been taking a break to check maybe once every few days for messages, but no real browsing. I used to have to look through every post on the news feed until I was current with what I had read the last time I logged on, but now I am okay with maybe glancing at a few profiles. Facebook forces us to reduce our lives to mere statuses, photos, the occasional note, and liking things you sometimes don't even really like that much. I want more depth in my life. I want to struggle to find the words to write here than throw up a few characters about how stressed I am or that I am sooo excited for the weekend. I want to find out who people are by talking to them, not by trying to figure them out via Facebook. That's not really who they are.

I think for as long as I have been on the Internet I have posted things to prove to people that I am worth getting to know. Social media is fun, but must I have a Twitter, a Facebook, a Google + account, and others to keep in touch with friends I see on a day to day basis. I have always had an "Internet life". It was a nice way of escape, and when I was younger and license-less, there was opportunity for communication outside of my family. It began when I went on the website listed on the back of The Clique series (remember those, Alice) and found a forum of middle school girls. Those were fun times until drama erupted, but from that forum, I explored LiveJournal and making graphics. I met some of the coolest people, who actually cared about my life. And this is where the red flag goes up because uh oh, I made online friends who could come stalk me! but it wasn't sketchy at all. As life has gotten busier, I have neglected most of those websites, not necessarily out of choice. It just happened, and it's weird to try to go back.

I don't want my life to be digital. I realize the Internet is a great tool, but I want to have tangible ideas of my friendships and my thoughts. I'd much rather journal and talk about my life to friends than post a status that maybe gets six likes. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? You're giving me a whole twenty seconds of your thoughts. I don't want to be reduced to a mere profile page. That's not who I am.

P.S. The title comes from the lyrics of the song "My Country Tis of Me" by The Collection (Awesome band in Greensboro that you should check out!) The song is kind of a criticism on the selfishness of America. I have this weird thing that I'd rather the title be obscure song lyrics than something like "Reflections on the Internet." Vague makes you want to read, right?

Have you got it in you?

I wanted to be the girl who knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life, and with much determination accomplished what she put her mind too. Needless to say, I am not that girl. I don’t know what happened… I guess I changed my mind, or never knew really what I wanted. This is all in regards to my major in case you were curious. Tomorrow is Advising Day, and I never thought that I would be the person so unsure of what I wanted to study…

I want to go back to high school when I wanted to be a forensic anthropologist. I didn’t care how many times anyone told me that I would probably change my major once I got to college; I was going to be a forensic anthropologist one day. I wish I could say that I lasted a semester in that major, but even before college began, I was rethinking things, realizing maybe I would rather work with children instead of dead people. The field of education must be for me then… some of my favorite people, the ones who inspired me the most, encouraged me in my academic studies, were teachers. And I always have loved school, but I don’t know if I want to be a teacher… or if I should even be a teacher. Lately, my mindset has been that I’ll get my B.S.Ed. just so that I can teach Spanish if I need to or whatever… but is it worth all that time and energy to go for a degree I am not passionate about? When I think about what my schedule will look like next semester, it consists of four classes for education and only one Spanish class. All of those education classes will require lesson plans, observation hours, etc…. And then if I think about student teaching, I freak…. Why would I dedicate a whole semester to something that I might not even be called to do? But then I think about how impractical it is to just major in Spanish because I don’t really want to be a translator, and I’d need to find something to minor in….

I really like my German class this semester. I really like languages in general. I always loved Latin at Caldwell, and I really wish that I could remember and continue with it now. Words are so cool, where they come from, how different regions say them, what they actually mean… And I just want to study them. I know that’s not practical… I mean what am I going to do with that? But maybe I just like the idea of going abroad and living somewhere, being part of a different culture. Maybe I would like to consider and pray about being a missionary. Maybe I would be totally okay if I spent my life working at McDonalds or a bookstore or a coffee shop or being a mom. Maybe I just want to learn for the sake of learning, not to actually devote myself to a career. Maybe I want to double major in International Studies, so I can continue to take German and actually have it count towards my degree. I think I would rather take Political Science, History, Philosophy and Religion, Anthropology, Sociology, and Geology classes much more than Teaching Methods…

I want to be cultured. I want to be able to reach out to others who are from different regions. I want to take that class on Islamic Traditions (unfortunately it’s not offered this Fall semester) because a certain Afghani family won my heart a few summers ago. I don’t want my life to fit into a nice tidy box of “this is how we do things.” So what if this will be my fourth major? Obviously, I am sticking with Spanish, so I got one thing right… I just want to go where God leads me… I just wish He would yell from heaven, “KAREN, THIS IS YOUR MAJOR ________________.”

Motivation

This morning I woke up earlier than normal for the sole purpose of finishing my homework. That's either the mark of a really bad procrastinator or someone who would rather sleep than stay up and "finish" the reading without really comprehending it cause after a certain hour my brain loses focus. In the process of waking up, I updated my Facebook status with a complaint about the workload it appears I will have this semester, but looking back on that post, I see so much wrong with my complaint. Yes, I will have a lot of reading, and this semester will be difficult, but what else did I expect when I came to college? Aren't I paying for this education? (And by "I", I mean the government, my parents, and maybe a hundred bucks here and there from me). I think this lack of motivation I have to work hard is caused by the fact that I don't see this education I'm getting a privilege. Daily I take advantage of the fact that I am at a university pursuing a degree in the field that I have chosen. Not everyone has that opportunity, and that's not even just people in third-world countries. Many Americans cannot feasibly go to college even with all the help the government provides. I mean for some reason our government values education and considers it important to help students even though we are already ridiculously in debt, and here I am pursuing a career in education, and sometimes I don't even give a flip about my own education. I just want to get by. "Oh, it'll get done...." or "I'll catch up on that after class" and then write a paper full of BS that will get me the grade I need, but that's not the point of me being in school. I'm not here just to get by and love the college life in the process. I'm supposed to study hard, but sometimes the motivation is lacking.

So let's make all these words actually mean something by putting them into action and finishing my two chapters of Don Quijote de la Mancha.

Not that girl

"I'm not that girl. I'm not that girl." I find myself repeating that phrase over and over again to myself as if saying it will make it true. I am fighting to hold onto that in order to believe that I am better than the events that happened. Even though in the world's eyes, the events were nothing significant at all. Nothing that should be avoided. Sure there weren't any feelings behind the hand holding or my head on his shoulder. Just two humans seeking comfort even if it wasn't from someone who would care about them in a more than friend kind of way. But those acts are a gateway, a desensitization of the importance of drawing lines in relationships, of guarding hearts, and seeking wholeness. Yet if I am to reject society's understanding of relationships and boundaries, why am I clinging to how society defines who I am? Because society says that what I do defines who I am. That how I perceive myself is what matters in determining who I am. That I am the choices that I make or don't make. That perspective is quite contrary to what I know to be the truth. If I really believe all that I say to believe than I am not the choices I make or the sum of my past mistakes. I have been redeemed. And I am not what I do or who I define myself to be because ultimately that will only lead to discouragement and discontent in how far I am from where I want to be. My identity must be found in the Spirit who dwells in me. My flesh will fail me but His Spirit is strong in me. And that Spirit says that I am a child of God.

Misinformed political ramblings

I don't pretend to know a lot about politics or the news. In fact, usually I am very uninformed. I only occasionally read up on what's going on if people keep talking, like they did with all that happened in Libya and Egypt, and then now with Joe Paterno. But today has been a day for thinking about politics in Econ and Spanish. In Economics, someone wrote one of our blog comments on a proposed tax on the producers of Christmas trees in order to pay for the advertising they were requesting from the Department of Agriculture to help raise sales. The debate was whether or not there should be this tax and also, if it was even the Department of Agriculture's place to help raise Christmas tree sales. Apparently, the dairy industry did it before, which is how the "Got milk?" campaign began. I think it makes more sense for the government to promote the sale of milk because it is promoting nutrition in a way since milk is important for strong bones, etc. But one girl commented that she didn't think it was the government's place to tell her to live a healthy life and that if she wanted to die from obesity at 50 by all means she would. And that comment just got me thinking about what is the actual role of the government. Does it merely facilitate and make sure no one kills anyone and let the market and everything else run freely? Or are there some kinds of standards that the government needs to promote? Obviously, we need some kind of structure to our lives because human nature is not perfect, but how much structure? And about what things?

On a different note in Spanish class, we were talking about the Spanish Constitution, and one of the articles says that "Everyone has the right to life" but the way it is worded in Spanish, it does not read "Todos los españoles" but rather just the word "todos" which encompasses every living thing...? It's very vague. There is no death penalty in Spain, and I am pretty sure that abortion is legal. My professor was very vague in his answer to my question about what was the view of abortion. I don't get how you can say that you value life and that is why capital punishment is immoral, yet say that a woman still has the right to choose to abort her child or not. And I don't understand how conservatives can be so adamantly "pro-life" when they are in favor of the death penalty. I am not really sure how I feel about the death penalty anymore, but it seems that both sides have their views about what is wrongly taking life mixed up.

Right now, I don't really know what I think about all of this, and I don't really know where to go to be informed because everywhere is biased.

Dear blog, thoughts swill around in my head, occasionally making their way into the lovely "drafts" section of blogger, but I don't ever seem to have any good concluding thoughts. Even now, I have a million threads, but nothing that resembles a finished idea. I think I've cultured myself to have a slight form of ADD, since I bounce from thought to thought, website to book, song to song, my mind never resonates on one thing for too long. This is a problem, an enjoyable problem because I like to have my brain constantly occupied by lots of nice thoughts. However, more often than not all I am left with our nice thoughts and no results, whatever those results may be. I think this might be a reason for my lack of motivation and focus this semester in regards to school. I strive for either mindlessness or mindfulness that is focused on twenty million different things, rather than the actual task at hand. It makes getting work done really hard. It makes it hard to sit down and write an email back to someone if it's more than just a sentence or two response. I dislike this problem, so I am going to turn off the music that I love so much, put my laundry in the dryer, and read a book for real.

Sincerely,

Someone Who Consumes More Blog Posts than Produces

Dear _____,

Dear blog, I'm sorry I neglect you. I just have lots of thoughts and no organization to them in my head. Dear Friday afternoons, you are the best time to be productive. Dear fall weather, you are a wonderful reason to bundle up. Instead of complaining about the chill in the air, I will enjoy all your beautiful yellows, oranges, and reds. Dear new watch, I am still unused to wearing you. I think you might be a little too bulky for my liking. Dear parents who will probably be reading this soon, I am sorry I have not called you back yet; I have been busy sleeping and doing homework. Dear Nancy, let's plan an adventure for Thanksgiving break! Dear Ballinger's creepy swings, please don't go anywhere like that Mack truck did. Dear Today's Letters, thanks for the inspiration for this post.

Sincerely,

A Wannabe British Blogger