A Few Months Later...

It's been strange being back in the United States. I think I've had a fairly tumultuous past three and a half months with many highs and just as many lows. The positive events, thoughts and feelings don't exactly neutralize the negative ones, but they do make living here much more vindicated.

I am sad about not being in Australia (which I almost typed 'at home' just now), but I know that my place is here. I know that I need to be here as much as I knew I needed to go to Australia 14 months ago.

At the beginning of December, I couldn't talk about study abroad at all, but now I've been opening up and talking about my experiences. Australia made me so happy and my experiences made me so blissfully happy--but my nostalgia about Australia made me sad. Now I'm just really happy that I am fortunate to have these experiences. I'm grateful for the privilege I have.

I've kept in moderately good touch with my friends I made abroad, and I revel in the idea of going back. I've even thought about going back to work with Mo, the community service organizer who connected me to my internship and three community service trips I went on to Busselton, Toodyay and Wiluna (a remote indigenous town). Her title undersells what she does--she does so much for everyone and every cause she can. And she has a ball pit in her backyard--you know, those Chuck 'E' Cheese ball pits? Working in Australia after I graduate sounds really fantastic to me.

Before I went abroad, I wanted to make sure I kept in touch with the important people in my life--and I did pretty successfully. However, in the past few months I've realized that it could be very difficult to leave again because of the people and my hometown--even my former hopes of living in Seattle--so much that it may deter me from leaving. In a previous post, I mentioned that people and places are my greatest loves and most fractured heartbreaks. I continuously stress about these loves and heartbreaks and the idea that leaving or staying will perpetuate both of these. There is also talk of touring the west coast of the U.S. with my family after I graduate--which would fulfill my desire to see more of America and also my desire to see Portland, visit to California and our national parks.

To catch up and summarize the past two and a half months, I've worked at Biggby Coffee as a barista, socialized with K and WMU students, began reintegrating into campus life (going to Monte Carlo, campus events, meeting with professors and centers) and registered for classes, which start on Monday. I'm currently creating an independent study about religion and the environment. I'm also figuring out my summer SIP plans hopefully with an internship in Chicago.

I've really tried to limit my meat intake.  I find protein in cheese, eggs and tofu now.  I've also think I found someone who I can trust, who will make me happy, and who will help me grow and continue to help me be a better person on a daily basis. Parts of the lines below reference them. Also lemme just shout out to all my freaking friends right now. I freaking love you guys. (that was kind of a weird paragraph--I know...)

I leave with the scraps of quotes and thoughts of mine I collected over the past few months. I feel like I've had more thoughts and feelings than I can really express or talk about. Whenever something strikes me I put it in this document. I just want to share it--it put it out there:

  

“Her eyes are so blue, the ocean should be jealous.”

“And it was as if my whole world slid into focus.”

Heather Hogan

Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once and awhile, you can miss it.

Ferris Bueller 

It’s a college. Not a monument.

(The social justice center of my college got a huge grant--this is one of the reactions from an alumnus.)

Get busy dying or get busy living.

You can’t depend on leaves and berries.

I don’t know if you want to depend on much more than that.

It is important not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong.

Let it lust.

If things were easy to find they wouldn’t be worth finding.

(Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was so good!)  

Where you invest your love, you invest your life. 

Things may get worse before they get better - but when they do get better, remember who put you down and who helped you up.

Loving whoever you are when the stars shine
and whoever you’ll be when the sun rises.

Andrea Gibson

Have you ever smiled so much you thought your dimples would fall off? well, I have..

Stop at nothing.

Kony 2012.  But besides human rights, we can't forget our problems close to home: homelessness, Hurricane Katrina, mourning 9/11, self-deportation, fracking, our unsustainable energy consumption and dependence on things that are not necessary.

At first the rock simply fell, like a rock one might say, like a stone.

But then something began to happen: it began to slow, it began to grow, it began to change.

It narrowed, it elongated and it also spread sideways.

It was becoming a bird. And it was. It was becoming a beautiful grey bird, really more like a duck.
Its wings began to move slowly up and down up and down. And it dove down and it coasted up.

Ben Loory--This American Life

This weather is scarily uncharacteristic. It freaks me out.

(The newer version of The Lorax was intensely animated and didn't include much of Dr. Seuss, but it did reach out to people and got companies to get on board with environmental activism.)