Comfortable Relationship

     I was checking out my Tumblr today when one I came across a post one of my friends had re-blogged. It was about comfortable relationships and how they're the ones that matter most because they're the relationships in which you are the most true version of yourself.
     It got me to thinking of my closest friends. They're the ones that I can be my crazy, wacky, not-so-normal self with, and they get it! Then I got to thinking about the various guys in my life--the ones I've liked, the ones I haven't been able to stand, and the ones that I've loved--how many of them are worth the effort of making them understand?
     There's the best friend from high school that I only talk to sometimes because it's awkward now that he's married. There's my cousin, the twin I never had, the one I can tell anything and he'll respond in the way I really need: make me laugh at something stupid, remind me that something really is important in the long-run, and be the one man who can remind me that I am loved, whether I like it or not. There's my dad. He's Dad, the rock that I can stand on, the storm that challenges me to become better, and the meadow clearing where I can recover after either success or failure. And there's the guy from college that I never told how I feel.
     He's probably the one that I first thought of when I read the post. He's the friend that, now, whenever I walk the paths at school I can't help but imagine him walking toward me or when I hear someone say his name, I start looking for him. He was a friend that I immediately wanted to share my successes with, and the one who made the failures seem less tragic. He would smile and I couldn't help but smile back, he would hug me and my entire day would be better, all he had to do was be in the room and my silliness was alright. But because of my own fears I never told him any of that.
     Is that was love is, being confident enough to step over those fears and share a comfortable relationship, making it more than it is? I don't know. I just hope that if there is ever a 'next time' I'll have more courage.

Just a thought....
Stephie

Triangles

So many different types of triangles! Here's a couple:

     Isosceles triangles have two sides that are the same length, the third is a different length. They also have two congruent (I love using math terms from middle school) angles that are opposite each other and adjacent along the third side.

     There's the Equilateral or Equal-angular triangle that has sides of the same length and with the same angles. They're not really as interesting as some triangles.

     There's the triangle that has sides of all different lengths and angles of all different measures. The sum of all the angles must be 360 degrees, something about the sum of the angles creating a circle. No one angle can measure 180 or more, something about a straight line can't be an angle...

     Then there's a love triangle. They're the BEST! (note the sarcasm) One of my friends recently stopped waiting for the guy she'd assumed was her 'one and only' prince charming to date a guy she'd just met. A normal occurrence in college, right? Apparently the former prince charming didn't see it that way and is trying to convince her to drop the new guy and commit to him, without a commitment on his side. While the new beau wants to give her the world, and commit to whatever she wants. I understand relationships are hard, but add in another variable to the two-point line just makes everything more complicated.

Sometimes triangles are fantastic, other times they're not the right situation.
Just a thought....
Stephie

Bucket List

     A couple years ago, more like five, The Bucket List came out. For me it was a life-changing movie; the idea of making a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my life was completely new (I was also seventeen years old). Since then I've made many different "Bucket Lists" but I haven't been so good at the checking-off part. I finally went through all the paper and put the different lists on my computer.... it was a long document. But I decided that I wouldn't delete things as I checked them off--only put a line through them. That way I wouldn't put them on the list again. It still hasn't helped me with checking things off my list. And the list just keeps on growing, despite how often I "check" things off.

     Here are some of the things I've got left:

1. Learn French
2. Run a Marathon
3. Visit Graceland
4. Read the classics for fun
5. Buy a house
6. Tailgate at the Superbowl
7. Ride the elevator up the Eiffel Tower
8. Go to the Olympic Games
9. Ride the Orient Express
10. Meet James Garner

and there were so many more. I crossed off a good number of them in my first years of college, but I've still got more to go, and I keep adding more, like I said. It's crazy how much I want to do with my life and how much I probably won't ever accomplish from that list (I had "Meet Andy Griffiths" on it, but then he died). It's wonderful to have something to strive for.

Just a thought....
Stephie

Inheriting Music

     I was listening to the introductory music of Copper, the new television show on BBC America, and something about it spoke to me. It sounds like a mixture of bagpipes and a fiddle, in the Irish style. It's a beautiful tune, and I wish I knew why it speaks to me.
     Is there something about the music someone's ancestors listened to that can speak to them? My parents haven't ever really listened to Celtic music, but I've discovered that I enjoy it just as much as the pop and country and classic rock I find on the radio. Maybe I should mention that my family is most significantly Irish, there is English and Scottish mixed in, but is definitely Irish.
     There's something to be learned from the diets of families--over years of not eating grain, people lose the ability to digest gluten and their descendants become gluten-intolerant or allergic. I wonder if the same happens with music. Over generations of listening to the same music, does a family develop a preference for it?

Just a thought....
Stephie

Lights, Popcorn, Action!

     I recently saw the new Avengers movie--LOVED IT! It was a great blend of the hilarity I've expected from Joss Wheedon since Firefly, and the action adventure that comes with creating a movie based on comic books. I'm not much of a comic book aficionado, but I did have some of the back story from the earlier movies. My next question is: Will they make a movie for the Black Widow and Hawkeye?

     The combination of various directors' vision to create the one movie was really interesting to watch, at least for me. The producers and Wheedon did a wonderful job of staying true to the characters that were portrayed in other movies (I really liked the cameos of Black Widow and Hawkeye in Iron Man and Thor).
     I just wish that Hollywood would take such care with other movies and follow the standard they've already created in this grouping of movies. I'm looking forward to watching The Dark Knight Rises.

Just a thought....
Stephie

Capstone Begins!

     I started taking my capstone class, the one that's supposed to be a culmination of all my work in college, and it is fantastic! I absolutely love who I'll be working with and our professor/mentor is supportive and cares about both the product and the experience. We'll be looking at "Words + Image = Picture" as our theme and I got really excited to work with movies and children's adaptations and all sorts of combinations of literal images juxtaposed against words and the images created through text.
     The first thing I thought of was "It's like when they picked Daniel Radcliffe to be Harry Potter!" Now, I do like Daniel Radcliffe as HP, but he isn't what I pictured when I read the first book in my head. I don't remember anymore what I imagined him to look like, but it certainly wasn't like in the movie. Similar things have happened with other stories I've seen turned into movies: Eragon, the Lord of the Rings series, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days, just to name a few.
     Now we've received the syllabus and had a chance to look through the books. There are books about photography, there are short essays, there are long essays, there are works about works about pain, there are photographs, there are novels: the scope of the writing is amazing and I am so excited to take the class and start working on my final project that I don't know what to do with myself.
     We started work right on Day 1, collecting work from throughout our lives and condensing it into a single portfolio that will be the "Portrait of a English Major". From this work we will develop our personal statements to be read when we present our final papers--the climax of each student's work in the English Department. So far my portfolio was 99 pages long, and I still can add to it (for which I am grateful, I'm taking a couple classes I want to add into the mix).
     I am nervous that I'll get too wrapped up in the fun of this work and lose track of my other classes, or that I'll swamp myself with more than I can chew. But this is what life is about: taking the chances and making mistakes while there's someone who can pick me up and say "Might want to try that another way." I go to Day 3 in the morning and have my first conference with my professor after class. I'm excited, nervous, and ready to get rolling on this project.

Just a thought....
Stephie

Patriot Day

     Today was an interesting day: eleven years ago four air planes were hijacked in flight and used as weapons in an attack on the United States. Now, I know that most of what I truly know about 9/11 is filtered through a childhood lens and what I've since been told by the media and my parents, but I did live through one of the most traumatic events of the last thirty years.
     Everyone says you remember where you are when it happens. It's true: I had just turned eleven years old,  my sister and brother and I were at daycare while my dad was at work and my mom was in Turkey on a trip for work. We were just getting to the "big kid center" when our supervisor/teacher got a call. It was the daycare's main base--where the younger kids stayed while the school-aged kids waited for time to leave--telling her to check the news. She turned on the television and the image of the smoking towers was everywhere.
     We stood in shock: what happened? What did that mean for a bunch of kids living three thousand miles away? What was going to happen next? It was a bigger question for my sister and me; what would happen to us? Both of our parents were in the military and any attack on the United States meant they could be sent anywhere around the world. The most difficult part for us was that neither of our parents could be reached... All military bases were on lockdown--nothing goes in or out (people, equipment, non-military communication)--and even they couldn't get a hold of some places overseas.
     It turned out that my dad wouldn't be going anywhere (he had three children at home and his wife was overseas) but my mom wouldn't be coming home either. Mom ended up coming home several weeks later than expected, and no one knew how long anyone was going to stay. My siblings and I ended up going to school as normal, going home, and staying with an aunt while Dad worked.
     We later learned that there were more than just the two planes we'd seen on the television: one landed in the Pentagon wiping out thousands of lives, and another was commandeered by the passengers, who diverted the plane from its destination in the White House to a field in Pennsylvania. Those passengers are now considered national heroes and are remembered for the lives they saved.
     It's sort of terrifying to think that all of those events, events that have driven our country into a decade-long military conflict and caused a significant change in how we live our daily lives, were so long ago. I am now twenty-two and have spent half my life living in a world where the people are scared to death of anyone different. If the attack on the United States hadn't happened, would we have moved beyond caring about what a person looked like or where their ancestors lived? Or would we still ignore the actions of truly amazing people just because they look or speak or come from somewhere different than us?

Just a thought....
Stephie

Tea! The Morning Pick-Me-Up

No, this is not my tea set. But I do wish it were.

     Some people drink coffee, some people drink soda, but I am one of those people who drink tea. I love my tea, but I kind of fell into it by a process of elimination. Soda is all well and good, but a little too sweet. Coffee has something in it that gives me migraines. Tea is only as sweet as you want it to be, and has the necessary caffeine to wake me up. I was just a little curious about the different types of tea. Here's what I came up with:

• tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world (the first is water)
• drinking tea is good for you -- it's filled with great stuff, even some anti-inflammatory
• tea can help regulate food intake
• it can produce a meditative state and causes an alert and focused calm
• there are white, yellow, green, oolong, black, and post-fermented teas
• most teas in tea bags are blends of different types of tea (but you can get "single estate" teas too)

There's so much more to know about tea, but I'm not going to bore you with it all. I'm off to enjoy my cup of Earl Gray.

Just a thought for a good night...

Stephie