Taking a step

Today I made a step forward. It may not be in the "right" direction, but at least I am moving. I applied for a scholarship at Mizzou for full-time study in the Library Science Masters program. The application for the actual program isn't due until May 1st, so that will come later, probably this weekend. It's just nice to be making some progress out of the stagnant water of my current situation.

Process of Elimination

For the past year, I have been plagued by one of the ultimate questions: What do I want to be when I grow up?

This is something that normally starts in elementary school. Flash back to third grade when our school had a Career Day. We were supposed to dress up as whatever we wanted to be when we grew up. People dressed up as doctors, football players, ballet dancers, all the usual. I had no idea what I wanted to be, even then. I didn't want to be any of those stereotypical careers. So I donned a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and tucked a pencil behind my ear: voila! cartoonist! Of course, as soon as I got to school, people started teasing me about wanting to be a mouseketeer, but that's besides the point.
Fast forward to senior in high school. Still didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. The only thing that really interested me in high school was acting. But unless you're really talented, you can't really make a career out of that. I figured I could decide in college. When I received news that I had been accepted at the conservatory at Webster University, I felt this huge wave of relief. (After all, you have to be marginally talented to get accepted there, right? That's what I told myself.) "This is it! I don't even have to be plagued by the question of what I want to major in- it's all done for me!" That lasted until midway through my second semester when it dawned on me I probably couldn't make a living acting in St. Louis. And I really didn't feel like moving to LA.
Thus started the process of finding a new major. After experimenting with Journalism, Psychology, and Marketing, I landed on Communications. Safe, right? It encompasses a lot of areas, and the skills can be brought to any career. (This is what I told myself, anyway.)

So here I am again. Wondering what I want to do.
It really is a process of elimination with me. There are a lot of careers I know I do NOT want to pursue: doctor, construction worker, dancer, athlete, etc. But there are a lot of areas where I am intrigued: speech pathologist, physical therapist, librarian, yoga instructor, professional crafter (if only this one were real! I would be superb at this!).

So where do I go from here?

Haiti

A lot of emotions have been twirling around in my brain since news of the 7.0 earthquake in Port-au-Prince. Deep, utter despair when news broke. Anxiety not knowing the status of our girls at House of Hope. Relief when I heard all the girls were safe. Fear after hearing a security wall caved and one of the support beams of the building were damaged.

Devastation is widespread. It's all over the news; pictures and video footage show people trapped under tons of concrete or being hauled away to trash dumpsters.

However, every day I thank God for keeping so many people I know safe. All the girls are fine. The orphanage director and his family, though their house was destroyed, are alive. Most of the staff and nannies, though all of their homes were destroyed, are accounted for. The school that began construction last year is unharmed. For now, the orphanage has food and water. The US has made a strong commitment, as have many other countries, to do whatever they can to aid the Haitian people.

So while it is inevitable that the news will slowly stop coverage of Haiti's capital, and many people will eventually forget about the devastation, I will keep Haiti in my thoughts and prayers.

It's a bird! It's a.... plane?

This isn't the first time I've blogged about knitting. Anyone who knows me knows I like to knit. And I like to think that my knitting skills have evolved in the two years I've been an active "knitter".

My most recently project was to be a gift for my nephew Caden. He (well, his dad, anyway) has a thing for airplanes. And I found the cutest pattern for a knitted toy airplane. I did some variation on the color, but overall, I followed the pattern to a T. As you can see, my version did not turn out quite as cute as the pattern.

Contrary to popular belief, those are propellers on the front, not a mustache.

Needless to say, this one will not become a gift. Most likely, Kevin will use it as chew toy. He'd probably rip off those propellers faster than you can say "747". But that's ok. I just need to start thinking of it as my first knitted dog toy. On the other hand, there are organizations that accept donations of hand-knitted hats for newborns. I wonder if there is an organization similar that accepts donations of hand-knitted other things, like airplanes with mustaches. Either way, it was a learning experience, right?

We wish you the merriest, the merriest!

Once again, Christmas has come and gone. It really sneaked up on me this year. I think school had something to do with that, since I was putting together a final project, paper and exam less than two weeks ago.

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the holiday movies. Every year, we seem to collect a new Christmas movie, which makes it increasingly harder to watch all the Christmas movies in our collection. For example, this year I did not get to watch one of my all-time favorite movies, A Charlie Brown Christmas. We own it, but with the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas and seeing family over the holiday, it didn't get watched. Neither did we get to watch A Christmas Story.

Watching Christmas movies that I've seen a million times may not seem that crucial. But let's look at this from another angle. As mentioned above, I got busy with school and the general hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas, which prevented me from watching some of my favorites, like Charlie Brown. Ironically, A Charlie Brown Christmas sends the message that Christmas has been over commercialized and people lose sight of the real meaning: the birth of Jesus Christ. Which is why I believe watching the movie before things get too crazy is a good thing.

I still have about four movies to watch. I think I'll try to fit them in before 2010. (Watching Christmas movies loses something if you watch them after New Years.) If not, a shot of Christmas spirit in April wouldn't be such a bad thing, right?

Dancing Bears

Is it possible to love your pet too much?

I posed this question to Justin last night after a trip to Target resulted in a Halloween costume and a Christmas sweater for Kevin. I never thought I would be the kind of pet owner who dressed up their animal. Wait, I take that back. I dressed up bull frogs in doll clothes when I was little. But that was just for fun. Kevin in a sweater- well, that's just adorable. I'm not about to run out and buy little booties and a rain coat for Kevin. (But again, he'd be adorable.) He is an animal after all, and animals don't wear clothes.

But that poses the question: Aren't we animals? We wear clothes. And not always for practical purposes, like staying warm when it's cold. Clothing has become a statement about who you are, what you like, etc. I suppose we could make a case that Kevin is expressing his individuality by wearing a sweater with dancing bears, but I imagine people might have a problem with that. Just you wait until you get our Christmas card this year with Kevin in his little sweater! You'll see how cute he is and why we had to do it!

Finally

Oh, happy day!
Today's blog is about someone else's life: Lynde and Chad. They found out on Thursday that they finally get to pick up Vivine. Today, they left for Haiti and will come back as new parents of one seriously precious little girl.
Even though it's not about my life, per se, it's all I can think about today!

Congratulations, you two!