1. There are no bad people, only hurting people.
2. There is nothing quite like the feel of a rain dripping down your face.
3. I'm going to save the world someday.
I cannot prove these things to you but I know - I know that even sociopaths start their lives as innocent babies, and that, more often than not, those are the babies whose parents don't love them the way they should. Those are the babies who start off their lives thinking nobody loves them and I know that we all need to be loved.
People have hurt me, but I don't blame them, because I know, I know too well, that when I am hurting, I hurt people. When I feel like nobody loves me, I lash out, and it is no surprise to me that everyone else does the same. But for now, for now I know I am loved.
Love isn't all we need, though. We need food, we need shelter, we need to be safe. If we don't have these things, we are scared, and we will do what we can to get them, or at least to avenge the loss of our safety. I watched a man try to convince an audience to have empathy, even for the people we hate the most. We don't need to be okay with what they do, but they have their motivations just as we have ours. And I know that I am trying, wishing that I could understand those people... the ones who have done the worst by me and the people I love.
It's been raining in Seattle, and nobody likes it. Oh, but I lie to say nobody, because I, though it hinders my paddleboarding and my internshipping, I love it. I love the rain, I know I'm crazy but aren't we all? I love the rain, but I wish you were here to love it with me. I wish I could pull on my fleece jacket and rainboots and drag you out to run and dance and laugh, mostly laugh, because when I'm out in the rain and jumping in puddles and licking the sweet skywater off my lips, that's what I do. If you don't like this rain, maybe you shouldn't be here - there are no clouds in California, and I know that's what I miss the most when I'm there.
I don't know why I believe that I'm going to save the world. I feel so helpless, so small when the problems are all so big. But everyone who's ever known me has high hopes for me, everyone who knows what I want to do with my life tells me that I will go far, and, helpless as I often feel, I believe them. I believe them because once in junior high, as everyone wrote their heartfelt "miss yous" and hardly-felt missives in everyone else's yearbooks, someone wrote in mine: "You're going to save the world someday, I just know it". I haven't spoken to her since high school or earlier, I don't know where she is now and I doubt I ever will, but if I could thank her for the confidence that note has given me, I would, because, for all 6 years of yearbooks from that school, and even some from elementary school, that's the only thing anyone ever wrote that I still remember, and I know that doesn't bother me in the least.
Maybe I'll be a great leader and make great changes, maybe I'll design some great sustainable thing, maybe I'll just love someone and tell them they're worth it and that will give them the boost they need to go on in live and change everything, but I think my contribution will be great and small - lots of little interactions, lots of little contributions, and lots of little moments that lead someone else to do their little bit. That's how I've always done things, see - when I was fundraising, I didn't ask for a hundred dollars, fifty or even twenty, I asked for two, because even then I knew that two dollars from everyone is better than a lot of money from just a few, if only because then more than just the richest can own the project - everyone can play a part.
No one person needs to change the world to save it, and no one action will save the world. I believe that I am going to save the world because, for all I know, everything I do now could be what does it, and if that's my life goal, and I often tell people that it is, I will save the world - as long as I'm willing to contribute more than just my two cents when the chance comes along, and instead put in my full two dollars and inspire others to do the same, all those dollars will add up to something great. And for all my uncertainty, all my feeling helpless, I know that I can always spend a little time working to make this world a better place, and myself a better person in it. For all you may be hurting, I know that you can too, and I know that I will be right here, trying to love you every step of the way.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Gourmet cooking can't be *that* hard... can it?
I mean, all you have to do is follow the directions.
Have all the right ingredients.
Have all the right equipment.
Have a clue what you're doing.
And all that means is following the directions, I think.
I'd love to be able to cook well, to cook food like you could get at a restaurant. I do need to clarify that first statement, since I have no doubt in my ability to cook food that people like, which, ultimately, means I can cook well. But at the moment, my collection of recipes is small and nothing particularly fancy. I've got a mac and cheese, a couple pasta dishes, banana bread and some breakfasty-things. I still swear up and down that I make the best cinnamon toast ever, though I haven't really had any other variations. (Easy too - remind me sometime and I'll make it for you. Now I'm hungry.)
Oh, and cheesecake, I guess. I do make a killer cheesecake. I guess that counts as fancy... and I've never had a better cheesecake at a restaurant than the cheesecake made by me and my dad. Believe me, I've tried. (Surprisingly, Scripps dining hall cheesecake came close once, as did a cheesecake bought at Vons for my birthday by my awesome roommate... who may or may not have known I have a birthday cheesecake tradition.)
That said, I'm still itching to expand, especially to dinners and breads. My panini habit means that I could probably shave off a quarter of my food budget by baking my own bread (or not eating paninis, but that's boring). I'm doing okay with that one... my sights are set fairly low - making a good sandwich bread actually isn't difficult, if you find the right recipe - but I'm looking forward to experimenting more over the next couple of months. Maybe try... spinach, bacon and cheese bread. Thanks Reddit for that one.
Dinners are trickier though. I'd love to have a couple meals that I can make which make going out to eat less worth it - I mean, not having to cook or clean is nice, but when I go out to eat in college, I appreciate it more for the amazing food (Aruffo's Italian is far better than even Pitzer's dining hall has to offer, but it costs far more too...). I'd love to be able to master an alfredo sauce, something college has somehow taught me to love. Okay, I realize I'm a bit Italian, but honestly, many of the pasta dishes I've had at various restaurants in the past leave me drooling just to remember them. If I could make food that good at home...
My main food goal for the summer is to recreate a certain soup, however. I went to Aruffo's twice last year, and both times, the soup of the day was a salmon and crab bisque. Now, I've never been a soup person, but I love salmon and I like crab in small quantities. So I got the soup, and the soup was amazing. Unfortunately, there seem to be no recipes on the internet for salmon and crab bisque, so the question of the day is - do I make a crab bisque and a salmon bisque and then try to combine them... or do I just find a few recipes for salmon or crab bisque and mash them all together?
Updates on that when it happens. Whatever happens, it should be delicious...
Have all the right ingredients.
Have all the right equipment.
Have a clue what you're doing.
And all that means is following the directions, I think.
I'd love to be able to cook well, to cook food like you could get at a restaurant. I do need to clarify that first statement, since I have no doubt in my ability to cook food that people like, which, ultimately, means I can cook well. But at the moment, my collection of recipes is small and nothing particularly fancy. I've got a mac and cheese, a couple pasta dishes, banana bread and some breakfasty-things. I still swear up and down that I make the best cinnamon toast ever, though I haven't really had any other variations. (Easy too - remind me sometime and I'll make it for you. Now I'm hungry.)
Oh, and cheesecake, I guess. I do make a killer cheesecake. I guess that counts as fancy... and I've never had a better cheesecake at a restaurant than the cheesecake made by me and my dad. Believe me, I've tried. (Surprisingly, Scripps dining hall cheesecake came close once, as did a cheesecake bought at Vons for my birthday by my awesome roommate... who may or may not have known I have a birthday cheesecake tradition.)
That said, I'm still itching to expand, especially to dinners and breads. My panini habit means that I could probably shave off a quarter of my food budget by baking my own bread (or not eating paninis, but that's boring). I'm doing okay with that one... my sights are set fairly low - making a good sandwich bread actually isn't difficult, if you find the right recipe - but I'm looking forward to experimenting more over the next couple of months. Maybe try... spinach, bacon and cheese bread. Thanks Reddit for that one.
Dinners are trickier though. I'd love to have a couple meals that I can make which make going out to eat less worth it - I mean, not having to cook or clean is nice, but when I go out to eat in college, I appreciate it more for the amazing food (Aruffo's Italian is far better than even Pitzer's dining hall has to offer, but it costs far more too...). I'd love to be able to master an alfredo sauce, something college has somehow taught me to love. Okay, I realize I'm a bit Italian, but honestly, many of the pasta dishes I've had at various restaurants in the past leave me drooling just to remember them. If I could make food that good at home...
My main food goal for the summer is to recreate a certain soup, however. I went to Aruffo's twice last year, and both times, the soup of the day was a salmon and crab bisque. Now, I've never been a soup person, but I love salmon and I like crab in small quantities. So I got the soup, and the soup was amazing. Unfortunately, there seem to be no recipes on the internet for salmon and crab bisque, so the question of the day is - do I make a crab bisque and a salmon bisque and then try to combine them... or do I just find a few recipes for salmon or crab bisque and mash them all together?
Updates on that when it happens. Whatever happens, it should be delicious...
Monday, May 14, 2012
A Very Colorful Mother's Day
By some wonderful glitch, this year managed to be the first mother's day in two years that I was home for - the first which happened after finals week instead of before.
It also just happened that The Color Run was on Sunday, and, for some reason, I decided I really wanted to go. You know, because I just love running. As does my mom. Oh wait, that was sarcasm. But we went for it anyways. Our first 5k.
The morning after getting back from school, we got ourselves up at 6 in the morning (on a Sunday, no less!) and drove out to Seattle Center to... walk... a 5k. And get covered in colored corn starch.
Well, it turned out to be awesome. Way more fun than my mom expected. (Maybe even more fun than I expected, but I already know how much fun it is to be covered in colorful stuff, thank you battle tie dye...) Everyone was just super excited (lots of high fives all around as we passed people), and having a "reward" every kilometer broke things up nicely into manageable bits. Plus, everyone looked awesome.
The best part, however, was the color throw at the end. They gave every runner a packet of the colored corn starch, which we were told to save for the end. At the end of the race, they'd count down every 15 minutes to a color throw, where everyone (with a packet) would throw their color into the air. While you were under it, it resulted in being covered in dust and having trouble breathing and seeing. However, the view from above was spectacular, and pretty much made the whole thing even more worth it.
Oh, and one more thing? My mom is awesome. Awesome for trusting me that we'd enjoy this event, and awesome in general. That's all...
It also just happened that The Color Run was on Sunday, and, for some reason, I decided I really wanted to go. You know, because I just love running. As does my mom. Oh wait, that was sarcasm. But we went for it anyways. Our first 5k.
The morning after getting back from school, we got ourselves up at 6 in the morning (on a Sunday, no less!) and drove out to Seattle Center to... walk... a 5k. And get covered in colored corn starch.
Well, it turned out to be awesome. Way more fun than my mom expected. (Maybe even more fun than I expected, but I already know how much fun it is to be covered in colorful stuff, thank you battle tie dye...) Everyone was just super excited (lots of high fives all around as we passed people), and having a "reward" every kilometer broke things up nicely into manageable bits. Plus, everyone looked awesome.
The best part, however, was the color throw at the end. They gave every runner a packet of the colored corn starch, which we were told to save for the end. At the end of the race, they'd count down every 15 minutes to a color throw, where everyone (with a packet) would throw their color into the air. While you were under it, it resulted in being covered in dust and having trouble breathing and seeing. However, the view from above was spectacular, and pretty much made the whole thing even more worth it.
Oh, and one more thing? My mom is awesome. Awesome for trusting me that we'd enjoy this event, and awesome in general. That's all...
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Dalai Lama, Banana Muffins, and how I relate the two...
I went to see the Dalai Lama talk when he visited Seattle a few years back. For reasons I don't entirely recall, we didn't stay for his whole speech... something to do with all the pre-speech festivities which took way longer than we expected.
When he finally did talk, he had a very thick accent and the crowd was still noisy, so I was relying on my mom to translate for me. Which means that only one point sticks in my memory...
There are two kinds of selfish acts, he told us. You can want something so badly that you take advantage of or hurt others in order to get it. This is the bad kind of selfishness. However, there is also a good kind of selfishness - you can do good things for people because you want the good feeling that comes with service, or you want karma to be good to you in the future, or, from my own experience, you want them to eventually decide to do nice things back. Your actions are motivated entirely by your own desires, so they are selfish. But they help others, they do good things: This, he told us, is the good kind of selfishness.
As some of you know, and maybe can tell from reading my blog this semester, it's been a rough semester. Mostly because my grandmother passed away (which I'm expecting to really hit me when I get home and back into the routines that usually include her), but also because I've been... well, to put it lightly, finding out who my true friends are. Who loves me versus who just spends time with me.
When I say that I'm finding out who my true friends are, though, I mean it. I've been disappointed a bit, but at the same time, I've been overwhelmed by love from unexpected places. People who were mere acquaintances before have suddenly become my best friends, and I love the kindness that they are bestowing upon me. I want more - so I return the favor, hoping that it will continue. Selfish, but not bad, I hope.
I've heard from various Christians that it isn't good enough to do good things and be motivated by the happy feeling you get to see people being helped, or by the expectation of karma... that we need to be motivated only by our love for God. But I hope this isn't true. I hope this doesn't mean that we shouldn't act on our desire for a good response to our kindnesses, as long as, should people not respond well, we do good anyway.
This week, I've been cooking a lot. Mostly, I've started trying to use up ingredients that I have leftover at the end of the year (half a box of Bisquick and 6 frozen bananas, among other things that would otherwise get thrown away). But... 6 bananas makes a *lot* of banana muffins, and half a box of Bisquick leaves you with quite the pile of cheesy biscuits... I have no desire to eat that much, and, as I mentioned before, I feel loved, I feel valued as a person, when people enjoy the food I cook (though, for those of you who are subject to my cooking experiments in the future, don't take this as a reason to fake it...) This means that when I pull my 39 biscuits out of the oven, I want to give them to everyone who will take them - not everyone will come back and tell me they liked them (and, I admit, the banana muffins were much better), but for the few people who do, I will happily pass them out to whoever will eat. Selfishly, because I want people to enjoy the food. Not selflessly, not entirely out of my love for the people around me (though I do love them), but because of the satisfaction I get from feeding them, and because, and the men who have most frequently been the subjects of my food-giving will happily agree, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
I found friends, I fed them, and, before I knew it, they turned out to be some of the best friends I have. That friendship is worth more than all the banana bread I've ever made... I guess that means its time for cheesecake.
When he finally did talk, he had a very thick accent and the crowd was still noisy, so I was relying on my mom to translate for me. Which means that only one point sticks in my memory...
There are two kinds of selfish acts, he told us. You can want something so badly that you take advantage of or hurt others in order to get it. This is the bad kind of selfishness. However, there is also a good kind of selfishness - you can do good things for people because you want the good feeling that comes with service, or you want karma to be good to you in the future, or, from my own experience, you want them to eventually decide to do nice things back. Your actions are motivated entirely by your own desires, so they are selfish. But they help others, they do good things: This, he told us, is the good kind of selfishness.
As some of you know, and maybe can tell from reading my blog this semester, it's been a rough semester. Mostly because my grandmother passed away (which I'm expecting to really hit me when I get home and back into the routines that usually include her), but also because I've been... well, to put it lightly, finding out who my true friends are. Who loves me versus who just spends time with me.
When I say that I'm finding out who my true friends are, though, I mean it. I've been disappointed a bit, but at the same time, I've been overwhelmed by love from unexpected places. People who were mere acquaintances before have suddenly become my best friends, and I love the kindness that they are bestowing upon me. I want more - so I return the favor, hoping that it will continue. Selfish, but not bad, I hope.
I've heard from various Christians that it isn't good enough to do good things and be motivated by the happy feeling you get to see people being helped, or by the expectation of karma... that we need to be motivated only by our love for God. But I hope this isn't true. I hope this doesn't mean that we shouldn't act on our desire for a good response to our kindnesses, as long as, should people not respond well, we do good anyway.
This week, I've been cooking a lot. Mostly, I've started trying to use up ingredients that I have leftover at the end of the year (half a box of Bisquick and 6 frozen bananas, among other things that would otherwise get thrown away). But... 6 bananas makes a *lot* of banana muffins, and half a box of Bisquick leaves you with quite the pile of cheesy biscuits... I have no desire to eat that much, and, as I mentioned before, I feel loved, I feel valued as a person, when people enjoy the food I cook (though, for those of you who are subject to my cooking experiments in the future, don't take this as a reason to fake it...) This means that when I pull my 39 biscuits out of the oven, I want to give them to everyone who will take them - not everyone will come back and tell me they liked them (and, I admit, the banana muffins were much better), but for the few people who do, I will happily pass them out to whoever will eat. Selfishly, because I want people to enjoy the food. Not selflessly, not entirely out of my love for the people around me (though I do love them), but because of the satisfaction I get from feeding them, and because, and the men who have most frequently been the subjects of my food-giving will happily agree, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.
I found friends, I fed them, and, before I knew it, they turned out to be some of the best friends I have. That friendship is worth more than all the banana bread I've ever made... I guess that means its time for cheesecake.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
My Very Own Narwhal
I've been crocheting seriously for a bit over a year now, which means I've pretty much got a handle on how the basics work. For a couple weeks, I've been thinking I want to do my own thing, so, after finishing up a batch of angry birds, I went ahead and made myself a narwhal. My first pattern free stuffed animal! (I'd say my first pattern free project but I made a blanket a long time ago... not that those are hard, it was just a lot of single crochet)
The pictures aren't great, but I wanted to share. Apparently messy desks are a bad background for colorful projects... and the rug pattern in the dorm is just distracting. But that's okay, Narwhal is cute enough to make up for it. I believe this one is named Dick (short for Moby Dick).
I'll be writing up a pattern over the summer (probably going to try to sell it on Ravelry), but if you want to try and make one yourself, I'll explain what I can.
The body started with a standard spiral, 6 evenly spaced increases a round until there were 36 stitches. After about 10 rows of straight single crochet, I began to decrease 2 per round, once a couple stitches after the start of the round, once a couple stitches before the end. (This is where I need to figure out my specific pattern, I was eyeballing it a great deal).
The fins were made in the round with increases and decreases next to each other instead of evenly spaced (so there would be two flatter sides). The horn was from a pattern called "Charlie the Unicorn" that I actually wouldn't recommend. The face was embroidered.
Hopefully I can manage to recreate this little guy from memory to make a pattern. I say from memory because I sold this one... I guess I shouldn't call it "My Very Own". Until then, it's on to a horse (the rest of Charlie the Unicorn), a few more angry birds (people keep wanting to buy them) and a huge batch of safety cones.
Over and out.
The pictures aren't great, but I wanted to share. Apparently messy desks are a bad background for colorful projects... and the rug pattern in the dorm is just distracting. But that's okay, Narwhal is cute enough to make up for it. I believe this one is named Dick (short for Moby Dick).
 |
| Standing up on his own... |
 |
| View from the front! (There's nothing on the back) |
The body started with a standard spiral, 6 evenly spaced increases a round until there were 36 stitches. After about 10 rows of straight single crochet, I began to decrease 2 per round, once a couple stitches after the start of the round, once a couple stitches before the end. (This is where I need to figure out my specific pattern, I was eyeballing it a great deal).
The fins were made in the round with increases and decreases next to each other instead of evenly spaced (so there would be two flatter sides). The horn was from a pattern called "Charlie the Unicorn" that I actually wouldn't recommend. The face was embroidered.
Hopefully I can manage to recreate this little guy from memory to make a pattern. I say from memory because I sold this one... I guess I shouldn't call it "My Very Own". Until then, it's on to a horse (the rest of Charlie the Unicorn), a few more angry birds (people keep wanting to buy them) and a huge batch of safety cones.
Over and out.
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