nostalgia

Why am I looking through college pictures right now? I have no idea. I think I'm wistfully enjoying the memories of a time when life was all about me. Isn't that the point of college?

Anyway, I found some magnetic poetry that adorned our fridge senior year. I really think none of us could have known how applicable this advice was. I don't remember who wrote it; I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Also, while I don't consider the bit in the lower corner to have anything to do with the poem, it is still quite amusing.

moodstreams

I totally forgot about this website and then I found it again. I think I've actually written about it before, a super long time ago. It's fun to play around with:

GETTY IMAGES MOODSTREAMS

natural faith casts out fear (john muir)

Hiking in Yosemite last week, I couldn't stop thinking about beauty from ashes, and about the story of the Phoenix. I've watched a lot of mistakes turn into beauty lately. Everything smashed on the floor, shattered. But then the rebuilding starts. The bravest choice: to create beauty out of failure. Free of the restrictions of prescribed shape, lives take on an uncensored beauty.

Yosemite rocks make me less afraid of things, perhaps because their permanance has nothing to do with me and my perfection. They have been there so much longer than I have been sweating out my latest problem/failure, and they just don't care. That majestic disinterest is incredibly comforting, somehow.

classroom chats

One of our vocab words is stifled.

I tell the class about stifling laughter, and how they've probably had to stifle a laugh when they knew it's an inappropriate time to disrupt class with a laugh. Then I ask what else can be stifled.

Girl on the left side of the room raises her hand, and shares the absolutely lovely reply, 'your creative spirit!'

Yes, I say.

Boy on right side of the room raises his hand and shares the absolutely honest reply, 'a fart!'

Yes, I say again. That is absolutely correct.

Oh, junior high, your highs and lows of maturity really never do cease to amaze me.