There is so much in this world that we have to learn, explore and see. This blog is an account of the beautiful world as I see it, explore it, and learn about it.
Hello All!
I took a couple days off to let the whole "getting hit by a car" thing pass. You know, no big deal now. Moving on!! Next big thing is... as big as the President. Partially because it was yesterday that President Bill Clinton was on campus (UMD)!!! He came to campaign for Obama. It was all very thrilling to see the campus abuzz with people either enthralled by his message, or for the Romney supporters, maybe more so a roll of the eyes at the message... but perhaps still excited by his presence? I don't know. I'm not in their heads.
I unfortunately had a class that I couldn't miss, but I did watch the live stream of his speech. It was pretty great, but for those who were there, it was probably an amazing experience to be in his presence! I'm pretty envious.
For the rest of this week it's crack down time. I have to write two papers for next week and they're both 6-10 page length requirements. Soooooo it's time I get to work!
Tonight, it's rather cold in Duluth, so I'm drinking some amazing Chai Tea while writing this for you!
I have nothing too crazy to report.
Well, that's a lie. Today, I was walking to work down St. Marie Street, crossing at the Woodland street light and a guy who was chatting on his cell phone and looking the opposite direction started creeping forward and hit me as I was walking out into the crosswalk. Mind you, he wasn't flying or going too fast, but I still fell to the ground. It hurt, but I was okay. My knee is a little sore, but other than that I'm perfectly okay.
He jumped out of his car and helped me up like a gentleman, apologizing profusely. When he was done babbling out how sorry he was and how awful he felt and making sure I was okay (WHICH I AM), I continued on my way walking the rest of the way to work. It's was a gorgeous morning/afternoon, but it cooled down a lot as the sun was setting so the walk home was a little frigid.
Life lesson of the day: Forgiveness.
I forgave the kid who was too busy talking on the phone to check the crosswalk before turning.
Second one: Luck.
That guy was lucky I was too shocked to really flip on him and start screaming.
I haven't posted in like a week... but I haven't had much to say. I had a long week. I was counting down the hours/minutes/seconds until I had my boy in my arms. We celebrated our three year anniversary with a nice home cooked meal of garlic shrimp pasta, and then he went to his buddy's house while I went to the Catholic Halloween party. He came back and we stayed up late talking. This morning we woke up and got ready for the day, took a nice trip to target to buy milk, butter and eggs, and stuff for his apple crisp :) We came back, made the apple crisp, watched some RENT and played Gin Rummy. Then we went to dinner and now he's gone. The time went too fast. I wish so badly that he could come back and be with me. I miss him. It never stops hurting when I have to say goodbye.
Our First Date: Halloween 2009
Our 3 Year Anniversary: Halloween 2012
He's such a great guy. He really is. We don't always agree on everything, but if we did, it'd be boring. He reminds me what it means to have fun and he breaks me out of my tiny shell. He is supportive and caring and he has this incredible brain. He's smart. So smart. Sometimes I feel like such an idiot when he goes talking about stuff, but it doesn't scare me. It doesn't annoy me. He's usually always right, except apparently about wine. I somehow knew more about what types of wine are sold under the Barefoot brand (no, I haven't drank any of them, but my mom has). Other than that, he's usually always right-- just don't tell him that.
He's got something in a guy that isn't easy to find. He has compassion. He cares. He really cares, about feelings, about what goes on inside this crazy head of mine. I love it. I'm so incredibly grateful for him and his amazing kindness and love.
Tonight's challenge was stars... and my camera is not good enough to get a picture of the stars out tonight. This is a piece of art my sister and I found this summer that I've been working to recreate for Violet's bedroom someday :)
This is one of my favorite songs from mass. I feel like this song brings me closer to God. I feel like this song is one that really feels like I'm calling out to Him. This song makes me feel closer when I feel far away. It makes me feel stronger when I am weak. This song is close to my heart when I am not feeling strong, when I'm feeling anxious, and when I am not sure how I should feel.
About Day 17's Photo Challenge... so I was in the bus hub waiting for my bus... which was late >.<
and I was like.. RIGHT photo challenge for today is to take a picture of a stranger.. I felt way too awkward asking someone if I could take their picture.. and then I felt weird trying to get someone looking at me.. so I took the one of they guy walking away. So, two minutes later (because he paused to talk to someone) he walked face first into the door. Everyone around (which were mostly people sitting in the actual bus hub area with the benches) started laughing. I felt bad for the poor guy, so I wasn't gonna write this.. but then it was too good to pass up.
Sometimes I get mad. I get really mad, because I'm good at one thing. That one thing is screwing up. I'm really good at it. Things are great with a friend? I say something stupid and screw it up. Things are really great with my classes? I miss an assignment and screw it up. Things are going great in my life, and again, I manage to screw it up. Screwing up is a part of life. My job is to learn from it. But, that's not always easy. Sometimes... it takes a long time to do it. Today, I'm mad. I'm mad for screwing up on several things. I know I gotta learn, but I don't know what I'm supposed to learn from it. So today I'm just mad. -H.Eilene
There's one part of religion that gets me really excited... no, there are a lot of things that get me excited, but there's one in particular. Check it out, the font got bigger, that means this is HUGE. :) Okay, it might not be that huge. I love that religion is different for everybody. I love that I met with a friend who can say, that he keeps his Bible on his bed stand and he knows what God means for him; he knows where he is in his faith. I love that I can say that I go to prayer some mornings, that I go to mass as often as I can because to me, receiving Jesus in communion is the most beautiful way to remember what he did for us. I have friends who are Jewish, Mormon, Christian, Atheist and Agnostic. We are all our own judge, and we all find our faith somewhere. We believe in something different, but we all believe something. Atheists might not believe in God, but not believing is still believing something. We don't have to agree in everything, but we can still just get along. That's what excites me. I love all of God's children, even if they don't know Him, or if they love Him differently than I do. Meeting with my friend tonight, was great. It had been a long time since we had just sat down and talked. We talked about everything, from school to church, from relationships to broken friendships, we talked about politics and religion. We talked. I missed having him around, and I'm so very happy that we had this opportunity to sit and talk. Always, H.Eilene
I chose this photo from my trip to NDSU with my friend Kayla, because it is her laughing with her boyfriend Mitch. More than anything in the world, I love when she is happy and when she smiles, and in this picture she is doing both. :) And then below is a picture of Jordan and I laughing the summer before last. Looking at this photo reminds me of how blessed I am to have such and amazing boyfriend, and such an amazing best friend in him.
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surelyI will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteousright hand.’
(Isaiah 41:10)
Today I really struggled with my anxiety leading up to my contemporary literature exam. Lately, exams and papers and classes in general have been making me apprehensive and nervous. I have been feeling like no matter how hard I study and how hard I work, it's going to end in failure. I feel like I am going to waste all my time trying to succeed when all I deserve and all I'll achieve is failure.
On my to class, to which I was running late because my previous class had run over, I could feel my chest tightening and the fear started to come over me. I paused for a minute, and just offered my anxiety, my fear of failure, my weaknesses up to the Lord. I offered them up and asked from him courage and strength to get through the exam. I asked for him to give me the confidence in myself to believe I could pass, that I could get through the exam with out failing.
I challenge you, next time you feel afraid, weak, or when you feel like your only option is giving up, take a second and offer it up to the Lord. Offer up your anxiety, your fears, and your weakness. Remember that he is always there, and he gives us the strength and confidence to be the best person we can be.
I would have been more creative, but this was the only purple thing near by.. and technically I'm late. WOOPS. This is my folder for College Writing and Economic Geography: my two most painful classes.
I start with this clip of the famous speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because lately, my dreams have been forming and molding themselves into bigger dreams. I'm coming to the realization that my dream doesn't really have much to do with what I'm studying in school, but I've also come to the realization that it doesn't have to. All these years I have been stressing over and panicking about what I want to do with my life, what I want to do after college... I've always felt like everyone else has their whole lives figured out. I've always felt behind.
And, I mean, I kinda guess that I still do. I feel like what I'm doing won't really help me with what I want to end up doing, but I'm not going to change my plan. I like my plan for school. I love the subjects I'm studying. If I'm creative enough I'll be able to come up with a justification as to how they'll get me where I want to end up. We'll see.
My dream isn't as big or as meaningful as Dr. MLK Jr's. I'm not a civil rights activist. I love everyone and accept all walks of life, but my dreams aren't that big. My dreams are for my future. My dream is to be a person I can be proud of. My dream is to be strong, respectable, kind. My dream is to be a wife, loving and loyal to her husband. My dream is to be a Catholic, firm in her faith and devoted to God. My dream is to be a mother, always and forever a mother my child(ren) can look up to. My dream is to be the best me I can be.
My dream is to own a small coffee shop in a city or small town (yeah, I realize that means anywhere). I want to own a coffee shop and sell baked goods. I don't want to be Starbucks or Dunn Bros. I want it to feel like home to readers, musicians and neighbors. I want one wall to be a bookshelf, filled with literature of all types. Biographies, romances, comedies, tragedies, children's stories, mysteries, everything. I want my guests to feel free to browse the shelves and take and leave books to share with the community. I want that entire side of my shop to have comfy warm chairs and art to make it feel like home. I want the other side to have a small piano and tables and chairs and space for a musician to take a seat and play their acoustic music as they please. I want the atmosphere to be warm. I want my guests to lose their time in my shop and be drawn to the smell of warm food and coffee.
I don't know how I'll get there. I don't know what English Lit and Geography will do to get me there.. but I don't care. I just want to get there. I want that to be my end all goal.
"The truth is, this blog is going to be about my experience as I explore college and as I slowly try to map out the story of Earth. (Map.. it's a pun.. get it?) Anyways, I hope you'll follow as I learn the new and interesting technologies associated with GIS especially. The hope is to be able to post at least three times a week either interesting photos I find pertaining to the things I'm learning, or to just lay out the things I'm learning here.. because experts say you learn better when you're explaining concepts to someone else... " I was afraid for the past few weeks that this blog is no longer living up to it's purpose.. but then I realized.. No. Even as I explore on here the ideas I've been pulling from my study of Catholicism, the experiences I've had as a student.. I'm still learning. I'm learning more about the Bible and God and my religion. I'm learning more and more about myself. These important lessons that I've been learning are essential to the creation of the person I want to be when I'm older. These important lessons are creating the adult I want to become. So.. yeah. The world is my oyster. I'm learning. I'm using my daily experiences with the world to change who I am. Most people, use the world to change the world... they take knowledge of systems and economics and politics and whatever else it is... to change the world.. we all change the world.. some of us are positive. We take the world; we want to change it to make it more sustainable.. we want it to be around for the rest of our lives and our children's children's lives. Some people take the world and change it by planning to cut down forests of trees or planning to build a dam. I'm taking the world and still trying my best to learn from the environmental processes and still taking everything I'm learning in my classes, and I love it. The big change since when this blog started is that I now am also taking what I learn from my experience with the Church and applying the lessons to my life. I need these experiences. I need these experiences because I need Jesus in my life. I love that there is a Father up in Heaven who loves me no matter what I do. I love that there is this beautiful story that we read every day in mass and that these stories... these lessons that are thousands of years old STILL apply to my life. I can still learn from them and take meaning from verses and chapters and books of the Bible. I am still learning. I am still working on becoming the person I want to be. I am still growing. I'm reminded of this every time I look down at my acorn. I am still growing. I've got a long ways to go before I become the strong, confident, resilient woman that I want to be, that I can be, that someday I will be. I will always have room to grow.. but right now... today, tomorrow, the next few years, are the years that I have time to focus on things that will help me grow.
12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Let's just take a look at some of the images in verse 13 here.. instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree
Wow. I just can't get over how great that is. Even if you don't really care about Christ, you can appreciate the images in this passage from Isaiah 55. It's pretty amazing.
I'm making a tutu. It's beyond fluffy, and the distraction it provides is wonderful. Though,
I've begun to use it as a study tool. Each color represents an era of transitional mapping. Believe it or not.. it's working. The first color, white is the dark ages.. where basically no
mapping happened. Then, the green is the monastic age where mapping was prevalent on a
Christian basis. Maps were made to track missions and conversions and the travel of Christ.
Then we have Orange, the age I never remember the name of, but it comes after Monastic and before Transitional, and basically nothing changes from the monastic age.. then we have transitional where
maps are starting to be used for important things (more conventional uses) such as navigation.
BAM. Studying. With a tutu. Now that.. that is creative.
So basically this past week has been focus on the study of the history and purpose of credit cards in my Economic Geography. The one thing I have to say, before getting into the meat of the topic.. is that I have yet to see the Geography part of the class.. it's basically just a really slow economics class.. and that's kinda lame.
Credit cards were made basically because the American lifestyle was un-achievable without the ability to spend money we don't have. It all began around the 1970s when working wages stopped increasing and became stagnant. Wages stopped rising and the worker's productivity (because of technology) increased exponentially. So what happened with the productivity went up and the bosses didn't have to pay their workers any more? A ridiculous profit margin for the the business sector.
Workers were creating such great products and in order to buy them needed credit. Buy now pay later. It's dangerous, as most of us have heard, because credit card companies like to screw us over with ridiculous interest rates and fees that do what...? Make profit for the credit card companies. Our country has over 3.4 trillion dollars of credit card debt. That's a lot.
What do people do to avoid using credit cards?
Many people use debit cards.. but how good are they really? I mean, they're pretty handy. I use one. But they have built in fees and charges that end up making a profit for the bank and cost us money.
Money Money Money is ridiculous.
If I've taken anything away from the class... avoid opening any credit cards and be knowledgeable about any hidden fees on debit or credit cards...
instead of the thorn
shall come up the fir tree,
and instead of the brier
shall come up the myrtle tree
