Kylie’s Graduating?!?!

It’s honestly so hard for me to fathom that my sister, Kylie, is done with high school and heading off to college at the University of Pennsylvania so soon!!! Sometimes it feels like only yesterday that I graduated. Especially on days like today where soon after I wake up I find myself talking for an hour with friends from high school.

I feel so sorry for Kylie and all the graduating seniors this year that have to miss out on so many special moments associated with ending k-12. It’s hard to imagine high school without those last moments, but I know they have created their own very memorable moments during this time. I’ve loved seeing online all the carpool parades, surprise house visits thanking college counselors, and the artwork done by lower schoolers in celebration of the seniors and their college choices. It shows how strong and powerful a true community is when distance isn’t a barrier for sharing moments together. And that community lasts long after graduation day.

So to Kylie and all the other graduates of the class of 2020, congrats!!! You’ve worked hard and faced some crazy odds these past few months, and now it’s time to celebrate just how far you’ve come and how exciting your journey will be next!

The Next Moment

Today was my little brother’s 14th birthday. It’s insane to think that he starts high school next year! I’m starting to actually be able to have adult level conversations with him and that’s a very odd thing, especially since he’s the “baby” of the family. (And I mean my entire extended family as well.)

Sometimes I feel like him getting older is what makes me most realize how old I am. Being a junior in college is a crazy time because, with potentially only one year left of school, it’s when you have to start thinking about what you want to do next and where you want to go for that matter. It seems like there are a lot more options at this point in life than there really ever has been before. There are also so many questions to ponder, like whether to go to grad school or look for a job, and then, of course, there is the question of what grad school or what job, and where in the country or even world might that school or job be, and how long in advance do you need to start prepping your application.

I wrote the other night about the struggle of having too many choices, and the idea of thinking about what comes next in life is definitely one of those paralyzing choices. People say to try and “live in the moment,” and not worry so much about the future, but when you think about it, nowadays if we aren’t constantly planning a year and a half ahead then it seems that it can easily become too late for some opportunities.

As early as middle school we’re taught to start thinking about the future. One of the first big choices I remember is choosing what language to study, and if you choose the “wrong” language class in middle school and want to switch your choice in high school then you have to start the new language a year behind. Middle school was also the first time we could skip a level of math, but if you weren’t selected to move ahead based on your 6th grade performance then it was significantly harder to ever reach AP Calculus BC if that was something you later were interested in doing. In high school, we start choosing some of our classes, and in 9th grade, we are told to think about our entire 4 years in order to make sure we’re able to schedule the classes we want. Then junior year is when the college process hits full swing with SATs and research so that by the summer you can start touring in order to then apply the following fall. Then in college, if you want to do an internship or study abroad, especially if you want to do more than one experience, you really have to come into school already thinking about what semester you will do these experiences otherwise you could end up in a situation where you want to study abroad but none of the classes you have left to take are offered overseas.

So you see, it’s really hard to think about “living in the moment” when the past 10 years have always been focused on thinking about the next moment. At this point, I imagine that there will always be a little voice in my head asking “what’s next?” Granted, this voice often pushes me into some truly amazing opportunities, so I’m not convinced I would actually want it to disappear, though it can also be a cause of anxiety when knowing the potential options are so vast.

Repeat

As week three of isolation comes to a close, I’ve started to find things to be very repetitive. It’s like someone turned a song on loop with how every day I do the same basic routine:

Wake up.

Eat breakfast.

Have a meeting with people in the States. (Today’s meeting was for Wish For WASH.)

Do some work based on that meeting. (Draft an email to our potential new partner.)

Lunch.

Video chat friends.

Passion project work. (This week focused on editing gymnastics music. Sometimes playing the flute or editing my old blog posts. )

Blog.

Dinner. (Maybe get fancy cooking something different.)

Watch Netflix.

Go to bed.

Repeat.

This repetitiveness is starting to make things feel quite tedious at times. Today I honestly really didn’t want to get out of bed for my meeting – in fact I skipped a general community meeting for educators I was going to attend and instead just went to my Wish For WASH meeting. Now it didn’t help that I couldn’t get to sleep until late and then was woken up early by mom calling because she needed something from me, so I was a bit extra tired, but also motivation can be hard to find when everything’s more or less the same every day.

I enjoy the ways I’ve been spending my days, but at the same time, I’m getting to the point where I really miss the spontaneity of life that comes from being around other people. Video chatting just really isn’t the same as being around people since in order to video chat both parties have to plan and agree to meet at a specific time – nothing spontaneous or adventurous about it. I miss just bumping into people or even seeing them because you both partake in the same activities and have to be around each other or having friends randomly show up to kidnap you for an adventure.

It’s hard to be excited by repetition. It’s also hard to find things to blog about when every day seems kind of the same as the one before.

 

Thoughts of the Day

I thought about everything I did today – which wasn’t much – and I’m still struggling to think of anything, in particular, to write about. Instead, I’ve decided to do this post as a series of little thoughts I had today that aren’t specifically connected with the hope that sometimes even just sharing little thoughts can spark larger discussions for others.

So here are my thoughts of the day:

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I miss doing acro a lot right now. I’ve gone long periods of time without training in the past, but I think having so much time and so many fewer distractions has made me miss it more. Time to think and reflect while being great at times can also make little moments harder at other times.

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I love the moment when old things become new again. My grandpa used to have a game on his computer called Snood and anytime we were with it we’d play it a ton. I’ve never seen or heard of the game anywhere else, but for some reason today I was thinking about it and decided to check if it had been turned into an app. I think I’ve checked on this before and was sad to discover it didn’t exist, but I guess now is finally the time because Snood finally exists as an app and that’s been really exciting today!

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One of the random things I miss about home right now is the random stuff that I can count on to always be in the house. For example, I know that pretty much anytime I can count on being able to make a quesadilla, pasta, or cookies. We might run out of ingredients sometimes, but then those items are immediately purchased at the next grocery run. I think those random items that are always around is part of what makes a house a home; it’s the unique quirks inside the house that tell you more about who lives in it. My apartment doesn’t yet feel like a home. Maybe it’s because I’m so aware of the fact that it’s temporary. Or maybe it’s because I can’t bake a batch of cookies right at the moment I’m in the mood to…

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Some of my friends and I had a Zoom call last night and we invited old teachers of ours to join in as well. We started talking about how clever Zoom is to be thinking long term by allowing educators to use Zoom for more than 40 minutes with the free plan because they want our generation to get familiar to Zoom so that by the time we’re in the workforce it becomes the go-to video conference platform. That’s when I realized, we are Generation Z, z as in Zoom… We are becoming Generation Zoom… With the amount this pandemic is impacting history, it honestly wouldn’t be surprising to me if this name stuck.

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I tend to be a future thinker. I’m always imagining and planning for things that are months away. Usually, I find myself getting frustrated with how I’m always thinking about the future because it often makes me miss out on living in the present. However, right now, this mindset is somewhat nice because it’s a great distraction to imagine potential futures rather than focus on the present right now. I’ve already gone down a lot of rabbit holes with this combo of future thinking and so much time. I’ve gone so far as to create multiple spreadsheets sorting all of our invite program gymnasts by age, brainstorming summer training groups, developing a schedule with very specific details based on these groups, and even started debating music for specific kids which they likely won’t use for two seasons from now depending on how things go… I know most of this is pretty pointless because there are so many unknown variables to factor in. We don’t know when we will be back in the gym, we don’t know who of our girls might quit entirely, we don’t know who will be at what level physically, and we don’t know what other gyms might have to close and therefore how many potential new kids and coaches we might have tryout at our gym. But despite all of the unknowns, finding little things to brainstorm about can be really helpful to stay hopeful and engaged about an uncertain future.

Theater Appreciation

Happy World Theater Day!!!

I haven’t been in a theater production in about a year now – not since Mid Summer Nights Dream last spring. It’s still weird for me to think how long it’s been considering once upon a time I spent 15+ hours a week in the blackbox pretty much every day of the school year and then some.

Even though I’m not physically involved with theater now nearly as much as I used to be, it still holds a very special place in my heart due to everything I learned and the people I got to learn with. So I thought I’d share just a few of my favorite things I’ve learned from my involvement with theater and, to drive the point home, some evidence of how I learned it:

• Confidence – It takes immense emotional vulnerability to do both the comedic and dramatic aspects that come with performance arts.
• Empathy – Every time you take on a new character you have to get in their head to understand what it would be like to really be that person and then show others what that looks like.
• Collaboration – A cast without a team mentality is a horrible show to witness.
• Critical thinking – Building sets: where do we need to drill this hole in order to create the angle needed to support this shelf?
• Creative thinking – How are we going to make vines fall from the sky on cue?
• Quick decision making / Improvising – The certain just broke mid-show but we can’t stop the show, so how are we going to work around it?
• Verbal communication – Try memorizing 50 pages of lines verbatim…
• Non-verbal communication – Great acting often happens in the moments of silence.
• Active listening – Don’t just wait for it to be your turn to say a line, it has to feel like a real conversation where each player gives and takes off of the other.
• Fail up – After messing up tragically, getting back up because the show must go on.
• Trust – Know your scene partners will be there to do their part in making the show great, from helping if someone forgets a line to insuring the props they’re in charge of get to where they need to be, and let them trust you to do the same.
• Presence – Rocking back and forth or twiddling your hair while speaking are all distracting gestures during any presentation; theater teaches you to stand firm and make intentional physical choices to emphasize your points.
• Acceptance – Theater people are different. It’s a fairly known fact, and I love this about theater people. Everyone is welcome period.
• Managing emotions – Even on the last night of senior year, tears are for later because there’s still a show to put on.

 

I’m sure I’m missing items from this list, but for now, this is a good start to explaining all the things I learned that make me love theater so much. Not to mention it’s just so much fun! I’m glad that in the midst of schools going online and everything closing down, arts programs are still finding ways to connect and learn these lessons even if we can’t be physically connected in space.

I miss my theater fam new and old and all the theater nerds out there enjoy this day.

Beating the Game Itself

Five years ago I had recently started watching the Disney show Girl Meets World, the sequel to Boy Meets World based on Cory and Tapanga’s daughter Riley.  I love the show because it reminds me a bit of some of my high school classes, where the teacher cares enough to know all of the details happening in various students’ lives and tries to teach in a way that provides life lessons beyond the classroom.

While I was watching this show I frequently ended up making connections between the lessons taught on the show, and observations I was making in my own life; therefore, many a blog post were inspired by this show. And I think that’s why I decided to start re-watching this show now that I have so much free time with social-distancing; I wanted to revisit these life lessons but with new observations.

One of my old blog posts inspired by Girl Meets World that I remembered being particularly impactful is called Playing the Long Game. The episode this post was based on is about how sometimes people might fight, but later in time, they may realize it’s actually best to work together to overcome greater challenges. This lesson was learned through a family game night where there are two ways to play the game: the short game where everyone is competing against each other to win, or one person can decide instead of winning on their own to choose to play the long game where everyone must then join forces and play together in order to beat the game itself.

Previously, I compared this episode to the struggle of competition within the classroom and how I wish there could be more moments of working together to beat “the game” (an assignment, school, whatever “the game” is) itself rather than always trying to beat each other in order to win the game.

I just got to this episode again, but this time I had a different reaction thinking now about life beyond the classroom.

At this moment in time, we are facing a great challenge and individuals around the world are deeply struggling with all of the changes to everyday life. To make it through these times we have to remember to focus on playing the long game – a game we have to play together in order to win. We need to keep our eyes focused on our common goal to have a better future that can only come when we join forces and utilize our individual strengths to lift others up. Some days might be hard. Some days we might feel like we’re still playing the game alone. But if we remember to ask for help when needed and give our help when needed, then we won’t be alone and we can beat the game itself.

Recording History

Well, it’s official, New Zealand has joined the rest of the world in this pandemic and goes into “lockdown” mode in 48 hours. Schools have now been closed/moved online and other organizations are following suit with everyone preparing for the next 4 weeks staying at home.

History is being made right now, and I figured I should write/reflect about it, so here’s my update from New Zealand:

I’m 17 hours ahead from my home in the US, and yet in some ways, I feel a week behind. The past week and a half I have been dealing with the fact that the situation in the US has gotten increasingly worse and all study abroad programs were canceled with students being asked to return home. I had to decide by last Wednesday if I was going to stay here and sign away GT’s liability to me being here or go back home to the states where the health situation has been significantly worse. I decided to stay because I believe one of the worst things to do right now is travel, and I feel confident in NZ taking advantage of the extra time we’ve had here to prepare for the worst of it. So I’m here for the long-hall for now and just taking everything day by day flying solo.

^This was last week.

Today, in the middle of my International Management class, the Prime Minister announced that NZ has had 36 new confirmed cases of the virus (bringing us to a total of 102 and spreading through the community now); therefore, the decision was made to up the country to a level 3 warning which will change to a level 4 warning in 48 hours.

Since then the city has kind of been in mass prep mode.

I can’t help but find things slightly amusing, because in my mind I knew this announcement was coming any day now. The past two weeks I’ve been getting updates from friends and family and twitter back home about things slowly shutting down and school-going online and toilet paper leaving the shelves. I’ve been hearing so much, and with study abroad programs being canceled also having to think about things so much, it’s almost felt like I was living in that reality too. Even though here in NZ, I was still just going to classes per-usual and dealing with the debate about going home or not while trying to submit assignments in on time.

I specifically treated last Friday like it would be my last day on campus, being sure to buy my last scone from the cafe, getting a sweatshirt souvenir from my host university, and getting lunch at my favorite spot. Then I spent the weekend starting to stalk up on groceries and cleaning supplies.

However, with the way people were acting today, it was clear that not everyone was on the same mental page as me. It was almost as if people didn’t see this situation as inevitable.

Traffic was crazy. Grocery stores were packed with check out lines going to the back of the store. Everyone looked in a rush on the sidewalks. And this was all happening only about an hour or so after the announcement while I walked home from my class. I can only imagine what things got like later in the day.

I got home and shortly after my roommate came in with her parents and suitcases already packing up to go home along with the dozens of others in the hallways. Meanwhile, I’ve been sitting at my desk updating friends and family thinking to myself, “deja-vu.” It’s like we’re just a week or so behind everything that I’ve been hearing about in the States.

So now I’m safe and healthy alone in my apartment with lots of food supplies ready to take things day by day and readying my friends for lots of video chats. With all of this newfound time I hope to be better at blogging more frequently and I would challenge others to also create a blog to share your stories during this time of uncertainty. 30 years from now students are going to be doing school projects about “The Great Pandemic of 2020.” Wouldn’t it be cool if these future learners had all sorts of primary resources from families around the world sharing about what their daily life was like during social-isolation? Not to mention, blogging can be a great way to consume time and reflecting is a great tool for mental health management.

Whether it’s every day, once a week, three times a week, every other day, or even once every two weeks recording our history is important and everyone’s stories matter. I challenge learners of all ages to reflect, write, and share your stories.  

New Read, New Perspective

I’m only two chapters into Whatever it Takes by Paul Tough, and I’m already so intrigued by this story on education, poverty, and trying to change the life of kids living in Harlem.

Geoffrey Canada grew up in poverty in Harlem and successfully climbed to middle-class status and feels utterly grateful for how he got to where he is today. Thus, Canada began working to help other Harlem kids catch up on their academics, but after spending years working in an after-school program he started to become frustrated with just how many kids were still slipping through the cracks. Whatever it Takes details the journey Canada took to start the Harlem Children’s Zone with the goal being, “to transform every aspect of the environment that poor children were growing up in; to change the way their families raised them and the way their schools taught them as well as the character of the neighborhood that surrounded them” (Tough 19). This new approach Canada believed had the potential to change the way Americans viewed poverty and change the lives of poor children by the masses so they could “grow into fully functioning participants in mainstream American middle-class life” (Tough 4).

So why are poor people poor? Chapter two of Whatever it Takes presents a lot of research from different perspectives that attempt to answer this question. Honestly, it was fascinating to read about completely conflicting ideas society has concluded about poverty. Is it all about money, or what else might be a part of this story? Does government aid help or hinder? What resources are most key to success? How do parenting styles affect child development?

These various researchers did seem to agree on a few things: intelligence is highly valued in today’s society, intelligence and socioeconomic status are correlated, children intelligence is correlated with the intelligence levels of their parents, there are distinct parenting style differences between the middle class and poor.

The most interesting area of consideration to me was the concept of different parenting styles and the developmental effects they have on kids.

In particular, I enjoyed reading about Annette Lareau, sociologist and author of Unequal Childhoods, who was discussed as an example of someone focusing on the assets of all types of parenting; rather than looking at parenting styles with a conclusion of “this way is better.” Lareau’s theory is that middle-class parents treat kids like, “apprentice adult,” meaning that they are invited into conversations almost as equals and are encouraged to “ask questions and challenge assumptions and negotiate rules” (Tough 49). Additionally, middle-class children have very busy schedules with activities that the entire family will get involved in. Meanwhile, poor families had very different parenting styles. Children in poor families learn to entertain themselves in creative ways due to participating in far fewer extracurriculars, and kids learn to treat adults with respect; in Lareau’s study, she observed “much less freedom to talk back, question authority, or haggle over rules and consequences” in poor households (Tough 49).

Lareau concludes that the middle-class parenting style emphasis individualism at the expense of developing the family group which is developed more so in a poor family.

I fear my summarizing is far oversimplifying all of this information, but what really interested me in all of this is how recently I have observed the notion and stigma of “entitlement” becoming more common. Yet, Lareau seems to believe the middle-class parenting style is both creating this sense of entitlement while also developing the individual and skills that are currently preferred by modern American culture in the workplace: learning how to question, challenge, negotiate, multitask, and represent ones’ self.

So I guess my question is: Have we gone too far?

In my head I visualize the idea of skills gained from parenting styles as a parabola; for so long we have valued in the workplace the skills associated with middle-class parenting styles, thus my theory is, these parental tendencies were enhanced in an attempt to enhance the skills being developed by new generations of kids entering the workforce. However, like all things, you can almost always have too much. Have we too strongly favored the middle-class parenting values and now one of the outcomes – entitlement – has reached a tipping point where the parenting style is, in fact, creating undesirable outcomes?

Do we perhaps need to put a greater emphasis on fostering good family relations and respect as is found to be more commonly fostered in poor families? How do we do this? How is this cultural norm that is so deeply in rooted in our modern American culture shifted to be better balanced?

I don’t even know the true magnitude of this supposed entitlement problem I am proposing, but from my experience working with children in gymnastics, I know children behavior and belief of being “deserving” has seemed to have grown significantly in the past few years even. Meanwhile, families seem to almost always be “unique” or “broken” or “untraditional” or whatever you want to call it that boils down to the idea that families spend less time together. Seems like there could be a greater correlation there and that was just really fascinating to me.

I truly appreciate when required learning is fascinating enough to feel like you’re just learning because you want to be, and that’s so far what the entire summer program I’m on has felt like, so I am especially grateful and excited for the future learning to come in the next 6 weeks.

Somber yet Uplifting, Rewarding yet Frustrating

In the past five years, I have never missed blogging before my final exams. I believe it’s a time of year where it is especially important to take time to reflect, and as easy as it would be to ignore blogging and keep cramming for my exam tomorrow, it’s probably about time I found my way back to The Life of Pinya.

Finals week is never smooth sailing, but this past week has been particularly rough with a whirlwind of emotions.

A week ago today my uncle passed away. Technically he was my great great uncle, but with the way generations work out in my family, everyone just called him Uncle Early. I’m honestly still a bit in disbelief that he passed, even just writing this paragraph in the past tense is kind of surreal. It was a shock to everyone. He was only in his mid-70s and in good health. Just a few weeks ago he was crushing it on the dance floor at his daughter’s wedding and every year he’d still challenge me to a fried chicken eating contest at our family reunion. Then two weeks ago he had a stroke.

He has to have immediate brain surgery, but things were still looking good. He was recovering so well; the last time I went into the hospital his temperature had just come back to normal, the nurses completely took him off of one of the painkillers, and he got rid of the case of strep he caught. Then they found something else in his brain. To be honest, I still am not clear on the details, but he died later that night while I was at the gym coaching.

My Uncle Early was a great man. Perhaps he had a bit of a cynical humor from time to time, like when he called a baby a “chubby little porker,” but he was good-hearted and everyone always admired how he brought people together. As one of my relatives put it, our family is comprised of a lot of halves and quarters and all sorts of combinations, and Uncle Early was one of those people who connects everyone. At his memorial service this past weekend, one of his daughters told us how on the notes in his phone was a list of all the Christmas presents he was going to buy for the people in the apartment in NYC he and his wife lived at once a month and another list of plans for their next family vacation for Summer 2019. It really made me realize just how much he was constantly thinking ahead and thinking of others.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see Uncle Early all that often despite the fact that we were in the same city. We mostly talked at our annual family reunion and the occasional family gathering for birthdays and weddings. Two summers ago my grandma and I also got to spend a week with him and his immediate family at a villa in Italy which was an amazing time. I think his passing made a lot of my family realize how silly it is that we don’t stay better in touch, and now more than ever it’s important to actively work to be together with our main connector gone.

And while you may think that having a family member pass away in the middle of final exams is already emotionally draining, my week only continued to get mind-boggling. On top of my uncle passing away and all of our family coming in town, we also had our first gymnastics meet of the season this past weekend. Thus I spent a good portion of the week in the gym for extra last-minute practices trying to get all of our girls prepared for the meet and the gym ready for us to host. And this only became more challenging once it was official that my uncle’s memorial service would be held in the middle of the time our meet was scheduled for. My mom, sister, and I were all supposed to be working at all three sessions Sunday, and thus when the memorial was planned we then had an extra stressor of trying to figure out how we would cover all three of us not being at the meet – there were a lot of phone calls to old coaches and having to explain to our girls why they would have to have a coach they hardly work with at their first meet.

I’m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed to not be able to be at the meet. It’s my first year being an official team coach in terms of actually having a set schedule where I’m the main coach for our youngest girls, so I was kind of looking forward to seeing them compete. Plus I felt bad for them because a competition is already so nerve-racking and I can only imagine what it would be like to then not have your main coach there with you. Not to mention it was the very first gym meet ever for most of my girls as they are on our lowest level of team so they’re mostly newbies to the competition world. I’m proud to say that from what I’ve heard they all had a pretty solid first meet, though a part of me still wishes I could have been there.

I was back at the meet though right after the service because to add another level to this past weekend, not only was I scheduled to coach, I was also scheduled to perform at the meet with my acro partner. While some may say they couldn’t even imagine performing after a memorial service, I’m a big believer in the saying, “The show must go on,” and it was making me more anxious and harder to contain emotions to even think about not performing when I knew I could make it work.

Despite what her mom may have said, I couldn’t bear to think about letting my partner down by not performing because acro isn’t the kind of thing someone can just come in to “fill in” for – if one partner is out, then no one performs. Plus we were both so excited though to show off our new skills and the fact that we finally got everything needed to be an official level 8 pair! (Well officially level 8 besides my tumbling which was a whole other stressor this past week of trying to work past my fear of back tucks while also dealing with my hurt wrists preventing me from other options…) Not to mention, I’m studying abroad over the summer and will miss our in-house meet in the spring, so I’m really not sure when our next performance will be which made me especially upset about potentially missing this showcase.

And I think it’s what my uncle would’ve wanted as well. I mean even his own service ended with a party in his honor because that’s the kind of person he was – someone who loved to bring people together for a good time. So my mom braided my hair in the bathroom after the service and I got in an uber and rushed back to the gym. My partner and I had not had the greatest of practices leading up to the meet, and to be honest for one of our routines we had only ever done it successfully with all of the skills once before the show. So besides all the other emotions, I was not in my most calm state rushing into the gym for a quick warm up before performing.

Somehow, thankfully, our performance actually went as good as we could’ve expected! My tumbling was awful, but we made every skill which for this point in the season is good enough for me!

Then Monday came and the whole “it’s the middle of finals week” officially hit me… Between coaching, spending time with family, seeing shows (like my high school director’s annual one-man version of A Christmas Carol, which I hope to never miss, and Elf the Musical – both full of great and much needed holiday spirit), and just trying to stay calm, it was maybe too easy to procrastinate school work…

So now these past few days I’ve been working hard finishing projects, portfolios, and taking tests all the while studying for my one in person exam tomorrow morning before I’m finally done with the semester.

I know I’m a compartmentalizer when it comes to emotions, which is probably evident even in this post, and honestly, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through this week if I wasn’t. But that’s also part of why I thought it was especially important for me to blog tonight. It’s often when we feel we have the least amount of time and/or desire to take a moment to reflect that we need to the most.

I don’t have a problem with talking to people about personal things, but it’s been exactly for that reason that instead, this has been one of those weeks where I just kind of avoided people. I knew I would naturally share with people the chaos of this week, but I wasn’t really in the mood to repeat the story so many times with each new person I ran into. That’s a bit too emotionally draining even for this compartmentalizer. The follow-up comments are just… awkward … There’s no better way to describe it personally. It’s a conversation no one knows how to have or continue or what to say or what not to say. I guess that’s just another reason it’s nice to blog- it’s a way to think without stress or interruption and get it all out there at once, not for the sake of sharing or for the desire of a response, but for the purpose of trying to help take it all in.

This week has seen it all. It’s been somber yet uplifting, rewarding yet frustrating, and a whole mix of other things I’ve yet to fully process, but I think writing some of it down might have helped a little at least to get out of my head and start to piece together just everything that happened this weekend. It’s had a bit of a sleepwalking-like feel which I’m not sure I’ve even quite shaken off yet, but “The show must go on.”

And with that, as the tradition goes:

A merry finals to all,

And to all crammers,

Good luck and good night.

A Lil’Pupper

My family has always been known for doing things kind of spur of the moment. Like when I took a week-long trip to NYC with 30 minutes notice. Or when we just went for a weekend to stay in a cabin by a zip line place. Or when we planned a trip to Italy within a  month’s times.

Well, this weekend we started fostering a puppy. We had been talking about getting a dog for a while and actively looking for the last few weeks but we hadn’t originally planned on getting a puppy. Saturday morning we were at a dog park meeting another dog who didn’t work out because she was too aggressive towards other animals and we knew we didn’t have the skills to help re-socialize her. Then as we were getting ready to leave we saw a bunch of tents where a shelter had set up and had some pups out, so we took a look and as the story goes we fell in love with this pup and are now fostering her.

So needless to say it’s been a pretty random weekend full of going back and forth between home and school for me. Then add to that tap rehearsal and seeing a musical at the new performing art center near my house.  It’s just one of those times where you can’t really tell how productive you are or aren’t being and that’s just been my mood all weekend.

Sometimes it’s nice though to have random things happen in your life even if it does through off your original plans. I enjoy my family’s habit of making random decisions, and hopefully, this one works out well. So far the pupper has been behaving very well and it really sweet and smart which is a good sign.