Updates and Religion

Greetings! I wish I had a really great post full of images and fun experiences to write about, but I don't today. Life has been busy!  It's certainly been busier before, but it's still pretty crazy. I've been waking up ultra-early each morning this week and despite the struggle, it's been an excellent choice! Mornings are inspiring too. I'm happy to share that my thesis will be finished on Sunday! It's just about there now, but could use a few more healthy read-throughs. This week I've begun to wonder about what I'll do with my time once it's turned in. Thankfully, there's still plenty to accomplish!

While at my parent's house last week, I set down the introduction of my thesis that I was editing at one point, and thought the scene might make a nice picture. 

On Tuesday evening, the Saint Michael's College center for peace and justice hosted A. Rashied Omar, a scholar at the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. When not teaching at Notre Dame (June-December), Omar works as an Imam (the Muslim equivalent to a priest or reverend) at a mosque in his native Cape Town, South Africa. I was particularly interested in Omar because of his involvement in South Africa's anti-apartheid movement and relationship with both Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. He spoke about intra-religious dialogue, the practice of Christians speaking with and communicating with Christians who may hold more or less strict religious views and Muslims doing the same with Muslims along with other faiths. The next morning, he spoke to my peace and justice class about the role of religion, emphasizing ten points. He elaborated on every point, citing specific examples and ideas, but just the list itself is eye-opening and informational. It made me think and I hope it does the same for you. 

The Role of Religion (by A. Rashied Omar)

1.) Modernization Thesis

2.) Definition of Religion

3.) Sanctity of Human Life

4.) Human Dignity

5.) Embracing "the other"

6.) Prophetic Theology

7.) Religion -- State Typologies

8.) Civil Society

9.) Social Spirituality

10.) Faith and Hope

Images and Words

Tonight as I filled in upcoming commitments, due dates and appointments in my agenda/calendar book, I reached the no-man's-land of mid-May. Turing the page to the week after graduation was a blank slate. It was frightening. The fright didn't arise because the page was a blank slate -- the empty pages were a nice change for my eyes, actually -- but that so much of my life right now feels defined by the next six (or is it seven?) weeks. The thesis. The final creative writing portfolio. The interviews and phone calls and travel. The plans. The excitement. I want to say I'm looking forward to graduation, but I'm looking forward to today and tomorrow and the moments in between more. The same ideas and emotions and experiences of last spring in Scotland are coming back. It's in realizing that I must leave a moment in time that I love. Yet it's in this process that I know that I must live in the present. "Am I excited to graduate?" has been a frequent question recently. I feel comfortable and confident to enter the world beyond, but in doing so, I've realized that I can never return to today and yesterday and tomorrow. What else defines life though? We can never return to last year or the year before, or five years before that. And I'm not upset about that. I'm pleased with where I am. I hope I always am.

I'm on my spring break this week. It's dominated mostly by working on my thesis (I really like writing it and I'm almost there!) with quite a bit of family time and outdoor adventures in between.  Lately, flowers have also played a recurring theme. 

At the Boston flower show, Saturday, March 15th.

Old Mill, the University of Vermont, March 10th.

I interviewed the Burlington mayor last week (March 10th) for my thesis, I was pretty nervous...

but not as nervous as I was for an interview with WCAX that evening…

I wore these new TJ Maxx shoes for both though, I think everything worked out well.

Blue Skies & Bagels

I wish I had some effective way to describe the past week besides the middle-of-the-night stream of consciousness found below. Put simply, it's been a good week.

I have a large chunk of my senior thesis due tomorrow and it's just about there. I've enjoyed designing the book's cover, choosing fonts and design, even the slight frustration of the learning curve of laying out the book through an adobe program has been enjoyable enough.

In the mornings, I've read plenty of the New York Times, specifically focusing on Ukraine. I resurrected running after a pair of shin splints kept me away for a week, and I continued reading a couple of war novels.

By night, I slept, read over the same chunks of my thesis again and again, shivered in the sub-zero weather, attended a birthday party and made a peanut butter pie for said birthday party.

At unknown times of day, I completed a couple of job interviews (oh man, real world time), listened to piano music played by a friend, coordinated the arrival of a $10,000 award for a local organization, and ate a few too many bagels.

In between such activities, I realized that I must leave Vermont. As soon as possible. Immediately, if it's an option. It's beautiful here, of course. It's just the never-ending-winter. A few friends and I nearly ran (not walked!) to the nearby Burlington airport when a new direct flight from Burlington to Orlando was announced.

Despite the ice, snow and chill, the increasingly frequent blue skies have brought a bright spot. This morning, as I laid on the far end of my bed near the window editing my thesis, a path of sunshine streamed in and I noticed something different about the large oak (actually, it might be pine...) tree outside my window. It was so attractive against the blue sky. Something had changed. Spring buds had arrived. They're small, but they're there.

This morning.

The current (tentative) cover of my thesis! The photograph might be changed later but for now I like it. I took the the photograph in Middlebury in early August 2013. I had just arrived for a dinner with a friend after driving through the Green Mountain national forest mountain range. It was an adventure. :)

Cover and one of the chapters. 

Sarah turns 22! 

Vermont Photography

I'm reminded often of how much I love Vermont, but also how ready I am for someplace new. I've been working recently on my thesis (a 100 page small book due on April 2nd!) which has involved finishing interviews, transcribing and sorting through long Word documents to form structure.

Photography will also be incorporated into the book, mostly photographs of those who I've interviewed, but because my topic is exclusive to Vermont, there'll be a bit of scenery as well. I'm not sure how much or little to include, but my favorite Vermont scenes since September are below.

Burlington, September.

Shelburne, September.

Stowe, October.

Richford, October.

Richford, October.

Richford, October.

Richford, October.

Stowe, October.

Ferrisburgh, November.

Berlin, December.

Brattleboro, December.

Williston, January.

Bellows Falls, February.

Bellows Falls, February.

Winter Simplicity

I've been at my parent's house for a couple of days and there is so much winter and snow here. So much. I've begun to fear that spring will never arrive.

I read a bit of nature-themed poetry this evening and these two poems stayed with me.

Midwinter 
by John Unterecker 

At dusk, a great flare of winter
lightning photographed the bay:
Waves were broken scrolls.
Beyond Donegal, white mountains
hung in a narrow bas-relief frozen on sky.

Later, there
was sleet: trees down
on the Drumholm road; near
Timoney's farm, a frantic goose
pinned under branches.

All night
long, we spoke of loneliness,
long winter, while winter sang in
the chimneys.

Then the sky cleared and a marvel
began: The hills turned blue;
in the valley a blue cottage sent up
the day's first plume of smoke.
It gathered like a dream drenched
in frost.

The Well Rising
by William E. Strafford

The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through
deep ground
everywhere in the field --

The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer --

The swallow heart from wingbeat to
wingbeat counseling decision, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.

Stained Sky and Running

It's continued to be super snowy here. I wouldn't mind the arrival of spring anytime, really. Lately I've been finding the color of the sky fascinating. Thursday and Friday brought plenty of snow. I went snowshoeing on Friday night after the storm and the clouds were still heavy but the sky was stained slightly pink.

Saturday was clear, and along with a few friends, I ran in my first 5k! I had been running often since the beginning of the semester but dating back to middle and high school, have never been too talented with it. I began to push myself this past month though, and while running doesn't seem to come naturally, it is invigorating and an activity I hope to continue. When a friend invited me to run a 5k with her, I agreed, asked my friend Katie to join and together, we trained indoors in the evenings for about a week and a half. I knew I wouldn't be able to non-stop run the 5k, but I wasn't too far off. Despite the cold weather too and the adjustment to running outdoors in February, I felt so warm throughout. It reminded me of nordic skiing races in high school and how when focused on something else, the cold air just doesn't matter. 

                                     

                                                       Thursday evening.

                                    

                                     Katie and I shortly after finishing, so happy.

      

                         

Remembering

A line in a New York Times article I read this morning has stayed with me throughout the day.

"I write because I desperately need to communicate, and because I know that ultimately, I cannot. I write to remember, and to be remembered. The one desire emerges from the other." --Saul Austerlitz.

When the Words Keep Arriving

It's a plague I've suffered heavily from before. Beginning sometime in late 2012, words and phrases began to come to me at all times of day and night. I was reading heavily at the time and writing often, but the words came from everywhere. They were wonderful, but an annoyance. I needed a notebook nearby at all times. I could think clearly, but the words still interrupted when they weren't welcome. It had begun slowly, happening for the first time in April 2012, during an especially busy time. Mostly the words arrived in the daytime, but gradually stretched into the evenings. I collected them as best I could, sentences of prose or a few poetic words, phrases, descriptions, ideas, characters and settings, but so many slipped away.

It intensified last winter and spring. Especially when I faded into sleep. I kept a notebook next to my bed and most nights, fought off the sleep to write down the words that kept arriving. Some nights I would promise that I would memorize the words and write them in the morning. Most nights this worked. I would dream about the words in the meantime. Then, sometime last summer, the words stopped coming. Few have since. Until last night. Or perhaps this morning. It was nearly 2 a.m. and the deep exhaustion was there. The sleep wasn't though. The words couldn't stop. In the dark, I scribbled down everything I could. Reading these words now, I had written in my half-conscious state, "It's not that sleep won't come, it's that the words won't let it. They fight and push and weave their way into every thought of my mind."

Before the flood of words arrived, I had been writing about something else in the same notebook. I was reflecting on how leading a student organization these past four years has led me to think about the journey I'm taking. How happy it's made me. I thought about the future for the organization, writing to those who will someday undertake the same responsibility, "It's my hope that you'll know the greater impact of what you're involved in, and know that it's worth every minute you give." This caused me to realize that everything in our lives are worth every minute we give. I might want sleep, but I want the words too. I want to be present in everything I can. I want to choose my life and grow to understand if I don't know what will come along with it.

I remembered this evening, after a long day, of words a friend once sang,  "I will leave a light on for you, my friend. I will hold a place for you on this road that never ends." This friend has since passed away. As I join many others in the entry into the world outside of academia, I want to remember these words. I want to know that the road going forward is a very good one.

Tea & Cooking

I taught my first cooking class on Friday! It was informal. One of my friends wanted to learn how to cook. We made mango-fried rice with tofu and vegetables. I'd say it was pretty successful.

Earlier today I went to tea with a friend. I had never been to the teahouse we went to before, but it was wonderful! In addition to my chai I ordered a daal soup with rice. I was also reminded of how fun Burlington is and how rarely I venture there in the midst of busy life. Time to change that.

A frightening dream of mine came true early Tuesday morning. It was shortly before 8 a.m. when I opened my car door to find the banana I had left there overnight had frozen solid. I had heard such was possible if a banana was left outside overnight when temperatures reach 20 below. I think it only got to 0 during the night, but it was true. The banana had turned to stone.

The frozen banana on a Bob Dylan CD. Once the heat was turned on, the banana quickly turned completely black.

Camera Joy

There are countless reasons why I feel fortunate to be a student of Saint Michael’s College and the department of media studies, journalism and digital arts (as a disclaimer, I’m writing this independently of Saint Michael’s College).

The writing instruction might be the most important to me, but the web design skills, journalism history, media law, audio recording skills, newspaper design, and certainly, the photojournalism skills have proved equally necessary. My few photographing skills come solely from my spring 2012 photojournalism class. With this class, came the best camera I’ve ever used. It was a canon and I know little else about it besides that I used a nice lens throughout the spring and a giant one when I photographed President Obama in late March.

the giant lens on the canon.

The giant lens in action.

When I needed to reluctantly return it in May, I told myself that maybe someday, I would purchase a camera like that for myself. As the next two years unfolded, I found the images I captured on my small point and shoot while exploring Scotland were more than sufficient and in the last seven months, my iPhone has taken over all photography. No complaints from either. With my ongoing senior seminar project though, a department camera came my way. It's another canon and I didn't think it would be possible, but it’s even nicer than the previous one. After purchasing a memory card this morning, I tested it out on my room's surroundings.