Long Overdue Summer Update

          It has been two months since my last update about my summer... My, how time flies! I don't have the time (or space) to write about everything that has occurred (and is occurring), but here is a short synopsis.

Cincy: Once again, the monastery in Cincinnati proved to be a relaxing and much needed time to meet with my spiritual director and reflect on where I am at. Moving on from college has been difficult and I have needed time to process that change. The reds also won the game my parents and I went to! Yay! 

Michigan: My friend Jana and I had such a great time camping in Michigan. With the exception of a storm the first night and a miserable trip to the laundromat to dry all our blankets, we had great weather, good food, and just a really nice time talking and spending serious quality time together. I love her so much and am glad we could make this trip a reality.

GRE's: The test went ok, some sections better than others. At this point I am not planning on retaking them...I think the scores will get me into the schools I want. But the best thing was after my test (in Toledo), I went and picked up Krissy! She had been staying in Michigan and was heading to Texas, but she was able to come for three wonderful days! It was so wonderful to have her around and also to remind me of the beauty of Ohio. We went on a 20 mile bike ride the one day, and it was truly beautiful as we rode past fields and streams. It is not Colorado, but when you stop and truly look, there is much to behold. 

Colorado (week one): After a long drive from Ohio to Kansas, then Kansas to Colorado, my family made it to our cabin. We had a full house with my parents, grandma, two brothers, sister-in-law, and my childhood friend Amy. We hiked, fed the chipmunks, explored the town of Salida, and helped with some fire mitigation outside. I then drove my oldest brother back to the Denver airport, spent the night with my mom's cousin, then flew to Phoenix.

Phoenix: Mennonite Convention ended up to be a really good week. I was staying with Ruth and our good friend, Darian. They were at convention representing Pink Menno (see Darian's story and learn more at http://www.pinkmenno.org/2013/06/four-years-later-and-still-here/ ) 

Being a delegate was a good experience learning about church business and seeing convention from a different viewpoint. (This was my ninth convention, but first time being a delegate). I also really enjoyed seeing different people I know from different parts of my life. I got to have one last one-on-one with Judy, as well as spend time with my cousin Beth and her two kids, Simon and Nadia.

(I didn't take a single picture in Phoenix!)

Colorado (week two): This has been by far the best week of the summer! Ruth and I flew back to Denver, got my car, and met two other friends (James and Jenna) at the Denver art museum. It was so fun to all meet up in a new place. We ate dinner and explored the city a bit before meeting p with the fifth member of our group (Josh) and drove over the mountains to the cabin. Our first full day we made breakfast before heading to Buena Vista's farmer's market. We then drove to the top of cottonwood Pass and hiked a little ways up. We then got groceries before going back to the cabin to make dinner, take another short hike, then watch Mulan. Our second day we went white water rafting in the morning, then fed chipmunks/explore the ghost town of St. Elmo, hike Agnes Vaille (a local hike to a waterfalls) before making a late dinner (veggie burgers and sweet potato fries!) then stargazing. The third day we travelled to Aspen, took a bus to Maroon Bells with a hike to Crater Lake, then walked a little bit around in town. We watched Bride and Prejudice while eating dinner and heading to bed early. The fourth day consisted of leaving the cabin at 4:30 to drive 1.5 hours to the trailhead of Mount Quandary. It took 3.5 hours, but we made it to the top of our first fourteener! For those not familiar with Colorado, fourteeners are mountains with an elevation of over 14,000 feet (of which there are 54 in Colorado). I have always wanted to climb one, but no one in my family has ever wanted Togo with me. It was a fairly intense climb, but we loved it! There were lots of mountain goats and other friendly climbers. That night we just napped and relaxed. The fifth day we drive to Colorado Springs where we visited Garden of the Gods, ate at Which Wich (my new favorite restaurant), toured the Olympic Training Center, and dropped Jenna and Josh at the airport. The next day after cleaning the cabin, Jmes, Ruth, and I began our long journey home. The first stop was in Topeka, Kansas, then had dinner the next day at Ruth's house in Indianapolis before sleeping at my house, then traveling to Harrisonburg (where James is from). I spent two days there visiting some friends.

New Windsor, Maryland: I am currently at orientation for Brethren Volunteer Service. Things are going really well so far, but that is for another post.

My Dumbledore

          For the past seven months I have been rereading the Harry Potter series. My mom read the first book to us kids on vacation when I was eight years old (I think) and since then I have been a huge fan! I think J.K. Rowling is a complete genius and the philosophy behind the books is deep and needs to be analyzed. But more on that later. Today, I want to talk about the character in the books who had the deepest impact on Harry - Professor Dumbledore. Professor Dumbledore is known as the most powerful wizard of all time, but uses his vast knowledge for good. He is always caring, non-violent, and gives the most amazing, although sometime peculiar, advice. He is Harry's role model and mentor. Although in the last book we learn of his flaws, Dumbledore to me represents the love and goodness any person should strive for and I find myself jealous of Harry for having such a mentor.
          Then I realized that I do, indeed, have such a mentor. Her name is Judy Mullet. Judy was the professor of my Honors class first semester freshman year, but I did not get to know her until second semester when I ended up in her office crying. The middle of my freshman year was really hard for me as I had to deal with issues that had happened in high school that I had never dealt with. I was unsure of my college decision and felt desperately alone even though I was surrounded by friends. Judy saved me then. As I talked to her, and later a counselor, I was able to work through a lot of my problems and realize that EMU was exactly where I needed to be. Having a EMU faculty or staff person as a mentor was a requirement for the Honors program, so I asked Judy if she would be mine. She graciously agreed and we began meeting every other week.
         As I have journeyed through college, Judy has been been there every step of the way. We continued meeting every other week for the last three years with the exception of my semester in Europe. Bad days always were made better when I got to get off campus and talk with this amazing woman. Somehow, Judy was always able to help me see my life in perspective. She became a confidante and a trusted friend. Anytime a problem would come up for me, she would listen. Often she would give advice, but more importantly she would just listen. I found myself telling her more than I tell most of my friends. And during those times when I felt on top of the world, Judy would share in my joy. I will never forget the smile she would give me or her laugh as she wondered about my busy life.
         You see, when Judy listens to you, you feel like the most important person in the world. No matter how mundane your life or how insignificant your problems, she truly cares. She is such a busy person, but despite her busyness, I never felt like a bother to her. In fact, I believe that she enjoyed our time together just as much as I did. She was there for me my entire college career and I would not be the person I am today if I had never met her. Sometimes I wonder if I would have gotten through college at all without her. She is truly beautiful inside and out.
         Every once in a while Judy can be a bit eccentric, just like Dumbledore. Also like Dumbledore, she is absolutely brilliant. But most importantly she is like Dumbledore because she is full of pure goodness. I am so blessed to have her in my life. Judy, I just wanted to let you know how much our relationship has meant to me and I hope it continues throughout our lives!

Summer 2013 Update

          With summer officially begun, many of you might be wondering what I am up to this summer...what sort of adventures are in store for me now? One of the first adventures to occur is the taking of the GRE! For those who don't know, the GRE stands for Graduate Record Exam and is the SAT for grad school. Although I don't plan on applying to grad school for a couple of years, I decided now was the best time to take this test, when I don't have a job and can devote time to studying. The scores are good for five years, then. I take the test on Monday, June 17. Until then, I am once again a full time student, brushing up on vocabulary and math skills.
         However, even before the test I am taking two shorter adventures. The first is a trip to Cincy to have a couple day retreat at the monastery. I am really looking forward to a time of reflection and retreat in that sacred space! My time there will end with my parents and I attending a Reds baseball game. Then, in two weeks, my best friend Jana and I will be taking a four day camping trip to Northern Michigan! I am so excited to spend this time with her before she gets married in October and I head off to another part of the world.
         The last week in June, I am heading to the cabin in Colorado with my family and friend Amy for a week. I then fly from Denver to Phoenix for Mennonite Convention, where I am a young adult delegate for Central District Conference. After convention, I fly back to Colorado where several of my college friends will meet me. We will then spend another week at the cabin, hiking, exploring, and spending quality time together. I will then road trip to Maryland (with stops in Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia) to begin my orientation with Brethren Volunteer Service. This orientation lasts from July 16- August 2.
         Most likely at that point, I will go back to Virginia to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend, before coming back to Ohio to work on the farm in August. Plans in September are up in the air right now, but hopefully it will be a time to visit people before I leave the country. Jana is getting married on October 12, then I leave soon after that for Europe!
         It is a busy summer, but I am really looking forward to everything (with the exception of the GRE). I also decided that my blog needed some freshening up, so I gave it a new look. Hope you like it dear readers!

Creative Writing Attempt #1

          ... Maybe if I was a better writer I would take note of my neighbor, an older man with a bright red shirt on that fit snuggly over his large belly, out on the front porch talking on the phone across the street. Maybe if I was a better writer I would wonder about his life, wonder why he lives in a yellow house in this dinky little town. Mayber if I truly cared, I would bake some cookies and wander across the street and introduce myself. But I don't. I don't belong to this little town and don't want to belong. I feel like I made for bigger things. For better things. As I run through the streets I smile at the dad teaching his kid baseball and observe another neighbor talking to the one cop in the town. This town has my permanent address, but nothing about it feels permanent. It is as if I am living in someone else's life. I have no desire for this life, the life lived in a small Midwestern town. As I run, I run towards the future, towards the quaint city and life I see myself living. I picture myself on the same run, but within that future life, where I am successful and happy. It is this dream that I picture as I cool down and pet my cat. Before bed, I read in my current novel. This one is about Turkey and lands far away. Right before sleep takes me away, I imagine my city and the life that is about to happen. 

Homesick

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.

Sam: I still feel at home in my house.

Andrew Largeman: You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

Excerpt from Garden State

          As I have begun my summer reading list, I have been struck by the concept of home once again. I have written several times about not belonging anywhere and the couple of places that have felt like home (Colorado and Northern Iraq), but today while reading Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orphan Pamuk, I am once again feeling like I don't have a place to call home. Pamuk's Istanbul is a sort of memoir where Pamuk describes the city with beautiful language, looking at his memories as a child and his life now as an adult in the city. He describes the beauty and the desolation and hopelessness of a city of ruin. However, what makes the book remarkable is that Pamuk has the authority to describe the city because he still lives in the apartment building where he grew up. He is so intimately connected with the city, and this connection holds him, even when he has the opportunity to move away. I am jealous of this intimacy. 

          Just like Andrew from Garden State, I feel homesick for a place that does not exist. While reading Pamuk I felt the desire to move to Istanbul. His descripitions of the city were so hauntingly beautiful that one feels the beauty and poetic meloncholy that the city brings. But I realize that even if I would just pack up and move there, it would not be home in the way it is for Pamuk. I would just be some Western girl in a foreign city. I doubt I would be able to experience Istanbul the same way a native experiences it. And from my Spring Break there, I really do not believe I would like to live there, even as I am intrigued.
           But this reading made me wonder what place will become my home-- or will I ever find a place that truly feels like home? Am I just a "Hopeless Waunderer" to quote a favorite Mumford and Sons song or will I someday find a city where I put down roots and become intimately connected. And will this only come with a family as Andrew from Garden State suggests? As much of an adventurer that I am, I long to feel at home in a place; I long to belong somewhere and know that I am home. It is funny because so far I have found places that feel like home (Colorado, Iraq), and I have found places where I belong (EMU), but as of yet, I have not been somewhere where I feel as sense of belonging and home. 

Graduation, A Shift In Identity

          As I am sitting in my bedroom in Ohio, I realize that it has been a month since I have last written. So much has happened in the last month, so many memories made, both happy and sad. I am now a college graduate. That makes me sound so much older and mature than what I feel. I have to admit that graduation Sunday was actually a terrible day for me. I had stayed up most the night before with friends and thus on Sunday I was tired, crabby, and honestly just deeply mourning the end of what has been the best four years of my life. For me, graduation was not a celebration of the work I have achieved, but a rough shove out of EMU into the real world. For with the end of college came a loss in identity.
         No longer am I a college student. I can no longer claim that title and sense of identity. I have been a student for the last sixteen years and now all of a sudden, it no longer holds true. As I walked around an empty campus the days following graduation, I also realized that I no longer belong at EMU. Yes, as I was reminded by a friend, EMU will always be a home to me just like Hogwarts was to Harry. However, it is not the same... things will never again be the same. I am not an EMU student and will no longer be involved in EMU clubs and events. When I visit, I come as an alum, not an active part of the EMU community. Since I moved right after high school graduation, Northwest Ohio has never felt like home; I don't really belong here. And now I don't belong at EMU either. For a few days in the last month, I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. I lost my identity as an EMU student and thus believed I lost my identity all together.
          But do not worry, I have some of the best friends and mentors in the world and was soon reminded of who I am. I may still be in mourning at the end of the era, but I am also truly excited for the future. This summer I will be attending orientation for Brethren Volunteer Service and then taking off this fall to begin a two-year term most likely in Eastern Europe. These past four years have shaped who I am and I will take that identity with me as I go. So who am I and how have I been shaped in the last four years? I would like to end with the words of my one of my campus pastors, Byron Peachey, who served as a mentor to me and presented me with the Cords of Distinction Award. To read more about this special award, go to http://emu.edu/now/news/2013/05/emu-awards-10-students-with-cords-of-distinction/. I have to say that this ceremony the day before graduation was more meaningful than receiving my diploma and I am so blessed to have been part of such a great community.
          
         "Come with me and step into Julia's apartment... look around and you'll see her eye for beauty and a quality of gentleness in the paintins she's done, over here closet doors have been removed to create a little more space for guests. On the table is her tea set to host and provide a space for conversation with fellow students, ministry assistants, with Shane Claiborne, and me. On of her professors says "Everyone seems to know Julia" - because they've come over for tea, or because they've heard hr speak in Common Grounds about the Conflict Free Campus Initiative focused on the Congo. Perhaps they know Julia through her leadership role with SGA, with Peace Fellowship, or Res Judicata or from something she's written in the Weathervane. Or maybe she's met with them one-on-one throughout the year in her role as a Pastoral Assistan.
          At EMU we hear the slogan -- "serve and lead in a global context," which Julia already is putting into practice. I've listened to her reflect on a cross-cultural semester in Belgium, her Ministry Inquiry Program summer with a church in San Antonio, Texas, her travel with a Christian Peacemaker Team to Iraq, and finally because - 'hey, the tickets were so cheap!' about her Spring Break in Istanbul. Characteristically, she drew four other students in going along with her. 
          Julia is a person of mystery -- with all her involvements when did she do her homework? I'm sure she's had plenty because not only is she graduating with a major in History, but also minors in Peacebuilding, Pre-law, Political Studies, Philosophy, and Bible & Religion. Julia is profoundly curious about the world, and her studies point toward a vocation of advocacy for human rights, for systemic change, and for cultivation of deep relationships. A graduate student from Africa says she has 'a heart of peace, sense of leadership, and competency of mobilization."
          She loves 'to plan adventures to brighten people's day.' 'She's one of my heroes!' says one of her faculty mentors, 'She is the best we have!' And now Julia, we have to let you go -- knowing you have truly made our campu community a better blace. 
          Wherever you go -- and recreate your apartment of hospitality -- you'll continue to share all you've learned and integrated in yourself, with friendships you've begun here, within the wider church, to strangers in other places who will become your colleagues and friends. I am so proud to present you with the Cords of Distinction."

The Final Three Weeks!

         Three weeks from today I graduate from college. This seems so weird to me; I don't believe it can possibly be true! I have so many emotions right now and am having a hard time trying process everything that is happening. First, I am feeling stressed. It is the end of the semester and EVERYTHING is coming due. I just turned in the rough draft of my History Capstone paper, which I spent the entire year working on (especially in the last week). I will still have editing to do on that and three (maybe four) other papers to write. I also have a couple of presentations (one at an undergraduate conference at JMU!) and one take-home exam. Other items that are causing stress are last minute planning of events and the normal busyness of meetings and events to be at. I also have applications to finish and the future to stress about. Which brings me to my next emotions: anxiety and disappointment.
          As a Senior about to graduate, it seems that I should know what I am doing next year, or even this summer. But, this is simply not true. I have already been turned down by two different organizations (one for summer employment and one for the fall) and it is really frustrating. The one job I knew when I applied that it was a reach for me since I do not have much experience, but it was still really disappointing not to get. Although I know that something is going to work out (I WILL be doing volunteer work for one of five organizations in the fall), it is hard to hear others know their plans and me to have only two rejections. I won't deny that I am a little anxious about the future and this week has been hard for me as I have dealt with rejection and disappointment.
          But, I have also spent some great time with amazing friends. Friday night I was with some of my favorite people just hanging out and watching a movie. Last night I went out for drinks with a close friend to catch up and just process life before seeing Les Mis. Although I have seen Les Mis twice before and have listened to the soundtrack countless times, it was still a powerful experience. The one line that really gets to me is at the end, "To love another person is to see the face of God." Loving is one thing I think I have done really well at college. My friends mean the world to me and the time I spend drinking tea and just being crazy with them is when I know that God exists and the world makes sense. I feel overwhelmed by the love in my life.
          Finally, I just feel so blessed. EMU might have its faults, but it really is a good place. One of the best aspects of the school are the relationships I have with professors. This week, one of my favorite professors, who I don't even have a class with this semseter, took the time to read a draft of my history paper and then spend an hour with me talking about it and suggesting ways to make it better. Then on Thursday night, another professor came over to my apartment for Peace Fellowship and we got to hear part of her life story. It was amazing to have that time to connect with a professor outside of class and have the space to ask any questions. Here at EMU, you know that professors truly care for you and believe that you will succeed. I really am blessed to have been here these four years and build these relationships.
         So how am I feeling? Tired, stressed, anxious, disappointed, sad, happy, silly, loved, and blessed. I cannot believe that I am about to graduate and that college will be done. I spent so much of my life looking forward to this adventure and I have done my best to live in every moment of it. And as such I plan to spend these next three weeks doing just that -- living every single moment to its fullest and soaking up these last few moments as an undergraduate student.