A day in the life.

During my sophomore year of high school, my friend Mitchell and I started this tradition of identifying one thing -whether it was a person, a quote, a joke, or an event- that was our favorite part of the day. The second part of our tradition was we tried to report to each other at the end of the day what our favorite part of the day was. Sometimes our favorite part of the day was the same and sometimes it was different. It helped us make it through the monotony of high school. We tried to make the best of every day and I think we accomplished this through our special tradition, the incredible power of positive thinking and the creation of good memories.
I am starting this tradition again. I love having this anticipation each morning that sometime during the day something will happen and it will be my favorite part of that day.
My favorite parts of this week (because I didn't keep track of the days) :
1. In my French class, our new vocabulary included some adjectives of nationality. Professeur Mrazek was listing some nationalities to the class and we were repeating them out loud. When he said, "japonais," my partner Peter whispered to me with utmost sincerity, "jalapeño?"
I laughed so hard I had to cover my face. I laughed because he didn't just ask the question with utmost sincerity, he meant the question with utmost sincerity. Now we say, "Oh, spicy!" when we talk about people with a Japanese heritage.
2. We have lockers in our workspace. Someone surprised me and left the best apple I've tasted in two years in my locker.
3. My Art Appreciation instructor Lisa Staley said, "Drawing is a great way to get to know the world." She is cute.
4. My friends Laura and Stephanie were walk-on characters at YL Club this week. They were Betty Caruso and Jodi Deitz from the Saturday Night Live skit Bronx Beat. They are the best.
5. My friend Kelsey told me I am going to be the Paris Hilton of heaven. I am not sure but I think this might have negative connotations. I am going to be good at everything in heaven.

Love and peace and justice and faith and equality

"With our lives we make our answers all the time, to this ravenous, beautiful, mutilated, gorgeous world."
Rev. Victoria Safford

Nous sommes le même.

With every lovely thing that ceases
A small fragment of who we are dies
And every new beginning is a search
To uncover a disparate way life is born.
Katelyn Peters

To be alive is to make our hope tangible.

Last week I visited my sophomore English teacher. She told me that college, and life itself, is a journey that is made up of many paths.
I must embrace this continuous change and be open to redirection.
Then she offered this advice to me: "You know, you could always write a book. I know there are ideas in your head that people would like to read about."
It scares me to death that the future is so full of possibilities. I am so young and idealistic. At the same time I fear dreaming endlessly, I also fear reaching a point where I dream no longer. I cannot imagine what this would mean.

"Writing is a struggle against silence." -Carlos Fuentes

Yes, dear.

We are carried through life. It is not our choice. It is not our breath that is in our lungs. Sometimes the motion that is around us, in this act of living and being, is soothing and peaceful. Other times life crashes around us; like the thunder you feel that aches in your bones.
On Thursday of this week, I finished my classes for the day and I had one hour before I had to be in a meeting. It was an ordinary day.
Sometimes I get really overwhelmed by the demands of life. I realize that I make my own life demanding and it is inherently my choice. My choice is to get the most out of the time I am given and I am determined to no end. But I do reach a point where I question what it is that I am working so hard to achieve.
On this day, I found myself led me to a coffee shop that is a minute away from campus on Main. I know the employees at Mon Ami. My friend Sean, who is in my World Literature class, has an older sister and she is the co-owner of the shop.
As soon as I walked in and saw him I said, "Hey Sean, do you want to make me some coffee?"
And he said, "Yes."
He also asked me, "How well are you loving other people?",
"What is your prayer life like?" and
"Are the things that you want right now the things that God wants for you?"
My answers to these were that I didn't have any. I don't have answers to the hard questions in life and yet right now, I have answers to the stuff that doesn't matter. He explained to my why I felt like I was laboring in toil.
There is a German professor who has made Mon Ami his frequent resting place. When I see Julian, he is always surrounded by lively people and he is enjoying a beer. He is wonderful to talk to. He joined the conversation Sean and I were having for a brief moment and he began to explain why he drinks more than one beer in the afternoon. It is because he takes time in his day to not be working. He decides to not respond to e-mails. He explained to us that the French, when describing their profession say, "Je fait..." (I do...) instead of, "Je suis..." (I am...) which is to say that they "do" some kind of work instead of becoming their work. And then he said something so profound. He said, "My job (as a German teacher) is not my profession; humankind is my profession."