Thunderstorm

A thunderstorm is coming. It is quiet but the still rumble that shakes my heart is in the distance. After a long weekend with General Conference (Mormon) and the end of a play followed by a long couple of days filled with work, my body and my brain want to jump up into the night and rebel. As a child, I used to go dance in the rain during thunderstorms and if I wasn't allowed out, I would sit by the window of our house in Cincinnati to try to be as close to the wild wind as I could. Sitting between the rustling houseplants, I felt freer than ever before. It is that same freedom I feel when I drive with windows open at more than 100 miles per hour, or jumping off the high diving board, or riding a roller coaster. Everything is lost in the beautiful sensation of power. The rain and wind falling all around produce an euphoria and I want to lose myself in a Mother Nature I have never met. Forgetting the assignments I have, I want to dance around until I am part of the storm.

But I won't. I will sit by the window and read my book. As a child, I wanted to be everything. I wanted to live forever and learn everything there was to know. I wanted to read every book ever written and name every star I'd ever seen. But now, I am only left with remnants of that beautiful embracing wonder I used to have. The tornado warning siren just went off and I remember the first time I saw the movie Twister in the theater. I wanted to go chase tornados and part of me still does. But I grew up. I want so many other things beyond simple sensation. I've experienced pain and illness. I've seen death and it doesn't scare me. It makes me appreciate every feeling I have. When I was a child, I thought I could have everything. I now know that I can't, but what I know was gained through suffering, which is something I didn't believe in as a child. Suffering and agony are what make me want to go dance in the rain and they are why I still sit next to the windows during a storm. Because I now know how precious this pure sensation will always be.

When a guy asks you to a game night . . .

When a guy doesn't ask you out, but asks you to a game night he is having at his place for friends, what is that? I asked this guy out more than a week ago, and I'm into him, but I don't think he's into me. Then he asked me to this game night over at his place. It was me, another girl I know, and the rest were guy friends of his from med school. It was fun and I had fun, but I think it is definitely signaling that we are just friends. But there was only one other girl there, so maybe he likes me a little but isn't sure if I like him. I don't know how to read signals at all and I don't know how to flirt, so I am really bad at communicating subtle relationship stuff without saying it. Relationship communication is always very ambiguous and can be interpreted so many ways, it confuses the more straight-forward of us. I could ask questions circling around forever, but I would still end with the fact that I don't know if he likes me and I'm not sure how to subtly indicate that I like him. I ask him questions, talk with him, go to his game nights, show concern for decisions he has to make. I don't really know how to do much more. I'm not one of those girls who can flirt or indicate interest in a guy without even thinking about it. The only flirting I can do is when I'm pretending to be someone else in a play and the lines are already given to me and they tell me where to move. Anyway, much as I like this guy, I think I'm going to have to give up and ask someone else out in a couple more weeks when I find some time after my play opens and closes. I have to give up on this though I like this guy and feel comfortable talking and having fun with him. I may not like the next one. I'm not that picky, but sometimes the most random things put me off.

Why BYU rating #1 as institution with both hot and smart students is not true and not something to be proud of.

So this article was posted recently and since I recently graduated from BYU, it was posted by many friends on facebook. Colleges Where Students are Hot and Smart 2013 I actually didn't like this so-called survey since it had no scientific basis and because of the methods involved. The survey is based on calling students and getting their opinions of the campus' level of hotness. This would be fine if it was looking for individual opinions and not using unverified opinions as research data. Beauty or hotness is not something that can be qualified because "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" as the old saying goes. And if it can't be defined, it can't be quantified. So what does this survey tell us? This tells us that the people called from BYU are
1. Very enthusiastic about their campus
2. Good at lying
3. or delusional.

This may seem mean because we do believe that every person is a child of God and that they have infinite worth, but this survey is wrong (I hope). I think all people do have worth, but beauty is not equivalent to worth. "Hotness" is something that society has dictated to have value. The fact that the person quoted in the article said that "Everyone at BYU is very attractive; I've yet to see an ugly person here" makes me wonder if people who aren't attractive are invisible to her. Was I invisible to her? There is the argument that she was talking about inner beauty, but if so she shouldn't have gone on to describe physical appearance. She actually went on to describe a dress code we have at the school that may constitute "beauty" in her mind, but it is her own interpretation of it if that is so. That would be the delusional aspect of my three points - that people pretend ugly people don't exist, don't want to see them, or have created their own definition of a word.

The methods of the survey tend to favor those campus students called who don't have any ugly people on campus, which is a lie. There are people everywhere who do not meet the world's standards of beauty. I think they are just as worthy of the best in life, but why do we feel that we need to call people beautiful? I'm not beautiful. I'm cute on my better days (which is the only time I allow pictures to be taken). Why do people feel the need to lie about students being beautiful? It is because our society has put such a high value on beauty that we want to make sure everyone has this value? Beauty by society's standards is not something I think should be valued above honesty and telling the truth. But I will admit that beauty has a very high value at BYU, as in the rest of the world to the point that someone would feel it necessary to lie because she is afraid of truly examining her love of beauty as opposed to looking at ugly people who are just as worthy and full of value as anyone, not dependent on society's standards.

As a religious institution, we believe in having different standards from society and this survey worries me because there are ugly people on BYU campus. It bothers me that people would be more concerned about beauty than telling the truth (which is part of a code of honor at our school in addition to our dress code). As much as the world wants us to value beauty, it is fleeting. Honesty is forever.

Game change for me (I think)

Rules of life:

1. Ask guys out. They aren’t asking you out and if you want to find a good one, you might as well ask them out.

(I started this list when I turned thirty and realized I had only been asked out by one guy ever. I was cute, not overweight, smart, talkative, nerdy, and on the whole pretty awesome according to biased sources. So, since I wanted to get married and have kids, I decided to ask guys out. This may seem a bit forward, but there was nothing left to be done since I dislike online dating. I used to be extremely shy as a kid and over the years I sort of got over that, but it comes back sometimes. Asking guys out is when it comes back. But I need to get over that and just do it, since I never have before. So, I asked a guy out. Via text. Much easier than in person and over the phone. He accepted and we went out. It was great. We have somewhat similar backgrounds and he’s really cool. He’s into extreme sports and martial arts. Frankly, he is way more awesome than me. He also seems to not be totally into settling down, etc. But anyway, this date lead me to make up some more rules.)

2. Don’t mention naked Greek-style wrestling ever. (Yeah, sometimes my mind makes the strangest, worst connections.)

3. Don’t mention anything involving eating disorders, rehab, psychological issues and any problems stemming from those things until like date five or so. (I didn’t mention this, but I had to make the decision to be very vague right there when he asked me about my crazy adventures. I stuck to vague round-about talk about high school and mentioned my spur-of-the-moment camping trips, which I loved taking. This goes on to another conversational rule.)

4. Do not talk about professional cycling too much unless he’s into that. (I allowed him to judge me and mentioned that this made me a nerd for liking cycling, but I may have mentioned it too much.)

5. Don’t ask him out on a second date. (Since I asked him out first, this seems a solid rule. First, it determines whether he likes you or not since if he doesn’t like you that way or doesn’t want a relationship, he won’t ask you out. I decided this is a good rule since I think I like this guy more than he likes me. This may suck, but it’s better to let him be the decider of whether you will be in a relationship. I may mention what a good time I had when I see him next, but that’s it. I may be slightly desperate, but getting into a relationship that wouldn’t go anywhere isn’t worth it. This guy was a bit out of my league, but really sweet and he likes Pink Floyd and Sherlock. I may want to go out again, but most guys I know consider me friend material. According to guys, I am not date and girlfriend material. Which points out again rule #1.)

6. Wait a week and if he doesn’t ask you out, find someone else and ask them out. (I would really like to have a kid before I can’t, so that means giving up and moving on to try someone else. There are other guys out there and maybe one of them will think you are awesome. Giving up is not an option.)

I will keep you updated on any more rules that come along. There probably will be more since I am new to dating and not that great at it.

Life Crisis

I decided that it was about time to have another identity crisis. I was about to turn thirty on Friday and on Wednesday, I was cast in a play as a fifteen year old high school student. That would have been fine if all the other people cast were older too. They were not. This is a college student production and all the other people cast were eighteen to twenty years old. I am the only grad student and an old one at that. I don’t look like it though which is why I was cast as the youngest character in the play. The play has eight high school students and I am the younger sister of the main character, making me the youngest. I didn’t think being cast as someone half my age would be an unpleasant experience, but it was. One of the resolutions I made when I was coming up on my thirtieth birthday was to stop lying about my age, which I have been successfully doing for years. I usually admit to twenty four or twenty five. But now I am letting everyone know I was turning thirty. Then a few days later I receive confirmation that I still resemble a high schooler. I would have been fine with college age but high school age is too much. I almost feel insulted by my face. I want to tell it to look older.

But this is where the crisis comes in. I think I do look older. I have fine lines around my eyes. My forehead is more bumpy and one wrinkle sometimes stays put. After staring at the mirror and seeing evidence of my decay, I want to yell at the undergraduates of the world and ask them why they cannot see I definitely look much older than all of them. That didn’t happen, but I wanted it to. It really makes me question the order of death and destruction in the world when I now look younger than I used to look, or the same as I have looked for the last fifteen years. I finally figured out the best hairstyle for me and in the last couple months have got it as close to perfection as I can. I finally started using face cream after I got back from Europe a few months ago. I guess the real problem is that I thought I would be further along in life by the time I was thirty, and that I would look it too. Thinking back to my first identity crisis when I was nine, this one is barely a blip, but that nine year-old expected her thirty-year-old counterpart to at least have been on more dates and be married by this point. I had a real job for a while before going back to school, so I don’t feel like a failure on that front.

This crisis is nothing like a couple others I’ve had. I started lying about my age to avoid crisis. Acceptance and being okay with my age was something of a healthy move. But was it? Should I have kept lying to myself? I don’t think I mind being thirty. Being single and thirty is more troubling. Just ask my parents. Being single, thirty, and being unable to date anyone your age because you look like a kid is torture. Have you ever had a crush on a guy and then discovered he is ten years younger than you? It is a bit disturbing. And if it is disturbing for me, I can imagine it’s worse for the guy.

Maybe I can just put this down to being in too many rehearsals for Oedipus at Colonus or reading too much Freud for my psychoanalytic literature class this semester. Or maybe I’m cursed to be single and look far too young the rest of my life. It may sound good but it isn’t.

Flying into the past

I love the idea of flying west to east across the international date line into the night cutting through it to see the dawn. I also love the idea of flying east to west across the Pacific to try to stay in the light. On this flight from Beijing to San Francisco, I slept a bit, watched some programming, read, and watched some Downton Abbey. One more episode to finish the second season. Anything over six hours in a plane becomes extremely uncomfortable and a bit of a marathon. I have two hours left of this flight and I probably don't smell great or look too great. Once I get to San Francisco, I can change clothes, use some body spray, deodorant. Maybe a store will have some dry shampoo, but no certainties. I should be back in St. Louis in twelve hours and in twenty-six hours I will be heading to a rehearsal. I am going to miss that day of rest I had scheduled which was swallowed by my cancelled flight in Beijing. Luckily my room is clean and many of my clothes are clean, I just have to unpack and buy some food and caffeinated beverages. Then class on Monday. Back to busyness and not looking forward to it yet.
Now we are approaching San Francisco and the sky begins to turn blue from the black it was before. The dark of the ocean blends with the lighter azure of the sky. Then comes the line of palest yellow which fades to the palest blue with no green between - straight yellow to blue. Then we descend to the fog and I can no longer tell what is sea and sky. Slowly blue fades to white and I see the tops of clouds and pink demarcates the sky and a final horizon. The pink spreads to peach and purple and a smeared watercolor sits above the white clouds. No wonder we flew so fast to meet the dawn. The molten honey of the sun outlines the faded plum mountains of a distant fairyland. Deep purple blue darkness breaks out from beneath the clouds and I don't know if it is sea or mountains until one shows a velvety moss covering wrapped in morning gray. All becomes clear as rough mountains frame the end of the color-streaked sky but mist still obscures more past the horizon as we fly into the mist and leave clarity behind.
But the concerning thing about flying west to east across the Pacific is that technically I arrived in San Francisco before I left Beijing. I am now in the past because I have now been in two places twice at the same time. A bit trippy.

Last day in Beijing - take two

I got to the airport on time. I got through security and immigration with less fuss than I have ever experienced in China. I didn't even get the pat down that everyone else was subjected to. It was all really going too well. I sat a little bit away from the gate at a charging station watching some Downton Abbey season two I have yet to watch and painting my fingernails. Then the flight was delayed and the gate changed. They gave us a free lunch but there was a long line to get it, so I used the last of my RMB to get a sandwich. But this was no ordinary sandwich. I bought it at a cafe, thinking that would make it more normal, but instead of what I thought I saw (two sandwiches cut in half and stack on top of each other in the package), I got something else entirely. I got a single sandwich, five pieces of bread high with filling between every slice, cut in half, I would have had to unhinge my jaw to eat such a sandwich, so I ended up eating one slice at a time with filling above and below. I got some decent cheesecake to cheer me up after that. Then I watched a bit more Downton Abbey before I realized I was at the wrong gate. I had heard the woman say E36 when she was trying to pronounce E26 to me. So I went to the right gate just as they cancelled the flight. Then the fun began.

I really don't like standing in lines and the Chinese can't queue to save their lives. People cut all the time. They are more of a narrow moving clump of people than a line, so people all seem to think it is okay to move in front of people. I had to stand in a clump to go back through immigration (they opened a special place just for our flight but it was a big flight). Then I had to stand in a clump to wait for the shuttle to the hotel. Then at the hotel I had to stand in a clump to check in, but thankfully before I was in that clump too long, they gave me a voucher and told me to have dinner first so I could check in later. This seemed like a good idea and with the wifi in the hotel, I was able to email Kitz and Dad to tell them where I was. They came out after I checked into my room and I had second-dinner with them. Then we watched a bit of the Discovery Channel before they went back and I painted my toe nails while watching a show about a guy who went to Shaolin to learn karate on National Geographic I think. Anyway, I'm going to take a couple hours sleep but not too much (so I can sleep on the plane) then get up and try to leave Beijing again tomorrow.

Last days in Beijing

So the last Saturday I was in Beijing, Dad and I went to Ladies' Street to look around, but we didn't find much there. Neither my father or I are really good at shopping. We like to get what is needed and leave so going to a place with no end goal in mind is not fun. So we went on a long cold walk. I found a nice leather shoulder bag which I did not haggle hard enough for according to Kitz. Then we walked back and tried to find a shortcut back but failed miserably. We ended up in this large and rundown apartment complex that was completely walled except for the entrance we came in. So while we could see the apartment building on the other side of the wall, we had to turn around and go back the way we came and walk the long way around. After we had another stop for groceries, we got back and watched The Avengers and then started the long saga of all three extended versions of Lord of the Rings. Dad hadn't seen it for many years and we did just see The Hobbit in Korea.

Kitz was at work and got home to us with pizza watching Peter Jackson movies. She has had to work eight days straight, so she also had to work tomorrow on Sunday. Irena, Dad, and I got to church then went back home to more Lord of the Rings. We took a break when Kitz got home and watched the David Tennant and Catherine Tate play of Much Ado About Nothing, then tumbled into bed.

On my last day in Beijing, I went to the Yonghe Lama Temple. The air was filled with incense and most of the people were kowtowing to buildings, paintings, and statues. One of the Buddhas was so tall he reminded me of the giant Stay-Puff marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. I was just peering up and up at him. It really was a lovely visit. I have given up on audio tours again because of their many annoying qualities so it was nice to just walk through and see. I took so long I missed the 11:30 drum performance at the Drum and Bell towers I visited next. There was an interesting exhibit on ancient Chinese methods of time-keeping in the drum tower and more about bells and letting people know the time in the Bell Tower. They were not as nice as the temple, but decent.

Afterwards off to Qianmen to do some final shopping where I got my picture taken with three generations of a family. One woman asked for a picture, and I said yes. Then out jumped eleven or so people. We got a few then I took a picture with each grand parent individually then the grandchild individually. So that was fun. Then back to the apartment to pack. Kitz, Dad, Irena, and I went to dinner then finished up the cast commentary of The Return of the King.
The next morning Kitz was working at home as I prepared to take off for the airport and now I am breathlessly waiting for father and driver to come. They are late.

Summer Palace in Winter

So after a day of sick and coughing rest, I ventured out to the Summer Palace. Kitz and Dad were both at work, so I had to find out how to add money to the metro card and get out there on my own. I got the typical stares from the occasional person on the subway and at the Summer Palace. I got to climb around on some hills to the top of the hill with the Bhuddist temple housing an incredibly large bodhisattva right behind another temple with another large bodhisattva. I got to take some pictures of other Chinese people visiting (blonde girl by herself in China looks safe or like she won't steal a camera) and got my picture taken with some Chinese tourists. I also got a few Chinese trying their English out on me including a couple really young soldiers who seemed to only know the word "beautiful." In between this failed attempt at flirting and conversation attempts, I did get to see some amazing vistas, many with caves and stairs leading to them. Some buildings were even built directly into the rock. Despite the cold weather, I spent about five hours outside walking and wandering around. I'm still a bit sick, so wandering around the entire lake and up and down hills was not the beat decision, but I'm tired of trying to recover by lying in bed since it hasn't seemed to be helping. So I wandered and thought about the stupidity of building a marble boat. It seems completely purposeless. So did most of the bridges, but they were all beautiful.

An interesting thing was the acceptance of breaking the rules. There were signs all over the place that no one should walk on the iced lake which the Summer Palace is built around. But considering the hundreds of people walking across the lake with the police looking on, it seems like rules don't really exist

except as signs. Whole families were all walking across with babies balanced between adult hands. This was their ice skating with shoes and a short cut to walking around the lake. I thought about joining for a few seconds, but the danger of walking across a lake with warnings not to walk on it dissuaded me easily. I prefer ice skating with skates and at a place where I am not scared of falling through the ice. It probably makes me a less exciting person when I decide to not walk on a lake, but I was cold enough without being wet. Frankly, breaking the rules is exciting because it makes you different. If everyone is breaking the rules it is not as fun or exciting, so less attractive. But all the people on the ice shuffling along was beautiful.

During all my wandering and climbing, Irena called because she needed a place to stay and Kitz and Dad thought I was at home. I had Dad take a break and walk over to let her in eventually then I finished my frigid wandering and took the metro home. It was not until I warmed up and ate a very late lunch or early dinner that the cough began again. So, I stayed home for the night and watched something on television. I don't remember what.

On my own in Korea

Illness caught up with me. I've been sick since a couple days after I arrived in China, but I've just kept going with medication. You can't be sick for Christmas and traveling. But we went to The Hobbit and then back to the bookstore on New Year's Eve, and by the time we were at the bookstore and found a place to eat, I was not feeling well and in a bad mood to reflect it. We did find a great Italian restaurant to eat at and I bought some Lacan and Žižek to elevate the mood a bit then we got some food. Wait, no I was confused. We got the Italian after the bookstore. Wandering around a frigid Seoul while not feeling good turns most things into a tunnel so you only have in mind getting to your destination. You walk and walk even though you don't want to, but you keep going. Earlier when I was wandering around Seoul on medication it felt surreal, but now the medication was no longer effective and by 6 pm on New Year's Eve, I just wanted to sleep. So I did. I woke up in time to say goodbye to the old year and hello to the new one, but not that much more. I believe Ken and April were having a party, but am really not too sure. 

Anyway, after so much sleeping (and a great deal of coughing), I woke up the next morning and felt slightly better. My father and Kitz were still sleeping, but Dad and I went to get some breakfast and brought something back for Kitz. We bought tickets for Les Miserables movie that night, so Kitz and Dad relaxed until then and I went out since it was my last day in Korea. They can go quite often, but it's a bit harder for me. So I ventured out with a map, some won, and no knowledge of Korean. I went to this little "traditional Korean village" they recreated in the middle of Seoul by moving five houses there from different parts of the country. They also had a ice sculpture village from New Year's celebrations. I was the only westerner there, so that was fun. I got a few strange looks, but not nearly as bad as China. People (especially old people) look at me strangely all the time. Even in Beijing. But off I went to the village and got back in time to take a taxi to Gangnam (where we see our English language movies). Kitz was getting pretty sick by this point and didn't get much out of the movie since she had a massive headache. We went back and she slept and then we left in the morning for Beijing.