SNOW

The weather here in Utah is officially the PMS outlet for Mother Nature.  The altitude and latitude we are at allows us to experience all four seasons in their fullness, albeit with a little bit of a twist.  In the spring we have snow and snow and snow, gradually getting warmer, and then BAM, its summer and nice and hot.  Thrown in between are days of wet and marshy grounds and rain and lots of wind that alternate with very hot and dry days and cold and snowy days.  Once summer officially arrives, its hot, hot and hotter (although not humid) till the end of August.  It will begin to cool down in September, with a smattering of very hot and very cold days, although it stays pretty warm.  Then, one day it will decide in October that it really wants to be fall and it gets cold and sometimes snowy.  Come November, the fall/winter weather will fight it out for a few weeks and then it will snow a foot overnight and be winter.  Welcome to Utah...

I love it here, though.  I like being able to experience all of the seasons, but winter is my favorite!  Waking up to 6 in of snow this morning was awesome!  That means that it is time to pull out my skinny jeans and boots and sweaters.  I hear a lot of people complain about the cold, and I hear a lot of people who come to Utah specifically for the world famous snow and all the winter activities.  Personally, I love so much about Winter.  I love the holiday season and the excitement that carries you month to month.  But the best thing really is the snow.  I don't know particularly what about it I love so much, but I can try to explain.

Back in high school, I would get up at 5:30 every morning for swim practice.  In the winter when I would leave, there would be no one else up or around.  The streets were never plowed yet (which was sometimes a pain to drive in) and all was quiet.  At that early hour, the sky was still dark and splattered with stars and light from the moon would glow off the new snow.  Silence was thick and absent in the cold stillness, absorbed by the snowfall that blanketed the earth.  Something about all of that was, and still is, absolutely mesmerizing.

Halloween

My family hates Halloween.  There is there is not anything intrinsically negative about Fall, or some of the activities associated with Halloween.  There is the matter of all things "Scary" that becomes a problem, however.   I have a terribly active imagination and it is quite capable of terrifying me witless without any help.  Because of this, I (and my family) tend to shun the majority of "Halloween" things like the plague.  My sister and I have an inside joke that starting October 1st, we become social hermits for the month.  It is the only way to avoid all of the scary movies, haunted houses and other detestables.  I find that many people give me a hard time for this.  What good does teasing me that I don't like scary things going to do than to annoy me?  Its not going to make me change my mind, or give into peer pressure.

I do find that people mistake me and assume that I hate everything associated with Fall/Halloween.  This is completely absurd!  I LOVE to carve pumpkins, and am actually really good at it if I do say so myself.  I also love to dress up, and usually go all out as this is the one time that I can get away with doing crazy and borderline inappropriate things.  I love the crispness in the air, the distinctive slant of the sun and the beautiful colors of the changing leaves.  I'm also one of those people who go out of their way when walking to make sure that I step on every leaf to hear the satisfying crunch! 

Back to the aversion to scary things, but there is one interesting catch:  I love to read horror novels.  Now, I'm not a huge Stephen King fan, and I don't like gore, but I am a HUGE fan of all sorts of supernatural things.  With that genre, the stories generally tend to fall into the horror category, but I love them anyway.  So I guess that makes me a bit of a contradiction.  Its not like that is anything new.  I'm a blond physics major who is also a hard core athlete.....tell me something I don't know.

The Waiting Game

So, life can be more than a little crazy at times.  The worst part is knowing and having to accept at times, that things are out of your hands.  Partially, to have gotten to this point is definitely a good thing.  But the waiting kills me.....as I learn patience. 

I had my interview for the Co-Op at NASA Johnson Space Center today.  I turned in my application over six months ago, at this point.  I didn't think there was realistically a chance that I still had a shot.  When I got the email for an interview last weekend, I was literally crazed with happiness.  Then the worry set in.  I was worried that I might say something stupid, or not say what I meant.  I was nervous that I would not present myself well.  And the old worried returned with a vengeance.  If I didn't get this position, what would I do with my life?  Would that change what I do with my majors?  Is this program even what I want to do with my life?

By the time last night rolled around and into this morning I had managed to work myself into a nervous and nauseated mess.  I have this incredible talent of literally making myself physically ill with worry and was putting it to use with a vengeance.  I had myself convinced that I was never going to get this position, and that it would save myself the disappointment if I just told the director that I was not interested anymore.  I have never been a fan of big changes, and this one would definitely alter my life forever.  It would just be easier to run from it than suffer the pain and humiliation of rejection. 

Thankfully, I did nothing of the sort.  Shortly after finding a nice empty room at the institute, my phone rang with a call from the director of the co-op program.  The next half hour was......interesting.  I felt that as I picked up the phone, my heart calmed down.  I was still nervous, but paralyzed by fear.  It was not necessarily easy to talk to the interviewer, but I found that I was able to answer the questions in a calm and thoughtful manner.  She was polite and intrigued, and I think I presented my case for the position well.  BUT (because there is always that new wave of doubt) she did imply that it would be difficult to place me.  The majority of people that are hired for the program are engineers.  I, however, (and somewhat obviously) am not an engineer.  This would severely limit their ability to place me within the program, as I do not have the educational background or future in that aspect of their system.  But in the program they do talk about how other majors are encouraged to apply, as it takes more than engineers to make NASA run.

Overall, I think it went very positively.  There are always those small doubts and regrets of what I should have/could have said instead, but that is always the case.  I choose to be positive.  I choose to think that NASA would be lucky to have me.  But in the end, this life altering decision is no longer in my hands.  Its all down to waiting 2 weeks to hear anything back.

Doubt

Its easy to tell yourself you can't do something.  Reason and logic allow us as humans to realize our limitations.  Such imperfections are understandable; we are flawed and therefore so is our judgment.  it would make perfect sense, then, to admit that something is beyond us.  Is this the point of maturity?  Are we meant to come to this conclusion and reach a steady, unchanging point in our life where we have achieved out full potential?  Although it is understood that by the same flaws which limit out capabilities, we are limited in achieving the lowered expectations, there is some "optimum" level that we can achieve.  What then?  Is our purpose in life served?  Do we simply fade to the background of our existence?

It would be easy to do this.  It is much harder to be impossible.  And I mean to actually be IMPOSSIBLE.  If we can accept our limitations and understand how they affect us, but still chose to act and be motivated to achieve beyond them, what have we become?  Have we transcended our limitations, or simply out-maneuvered our own benign acceptance of perceived reality? 

Everything in life tells us NO.  From the odds of being happily married, to getting a good job, to even doing well in school.  Its a rough jungle out there, and the varied challenges continually thin the field of the worthy.  Yet even then, impossible things happen all the time.  Improbable as it is, mankind does not seem to be limited, as a whole, by the fact that it has limitations.  Although this is an extremely optimistic point of view, the tale of our history is a testament to our attempts.  Not all of it is pretty, and much is shameful.  We do not often learn from our mistakes until we pay a cost far too great.  Even despite this, progress marches on.  And it even appears to have an exponentially accelerating rate. 

The concepts of faith and hope are now the objects of consideration.  We choose to be happy.  Despite many great and terrible things which stem from every change that is wrought, the faith in a brighter future remains unblemished.  Is man more than the sum of logical numbers?  Is he not limited by statistics?  Or are we simply far more capable than we have ever been given credit for?  Because we have the ability to adapt and change, we seem to constantly push the limitations of the known, searching for something more.  The only way the impossible is ever achieved is by trying.  If you try to do the impossible and fall short, it cannot be a failure.  We can on fail by accepting and never attempting to challenge the status quo.  Because we can, we were meant to do it. 

And that becomes the purpose of humanity.  Individually it becomes our responsibility to reach beyond our doubt and strive to become more.  Our true potential has yet to be reached.  The only certainty of failure is when we fail to try.

You Made a Rebel of a Careless Man's Careful Daughter

I have to be completely honest.  I LOVE Taylor Swift.  I love her music, her hair, her fashion sense and her honesty.  I relate to her music because she is singing about my life.  She is going through the same things I do every day; she just puts it to music.  She sings the soundtrack to my heart. 

Ok, that is a little cheesy and stupid.  But I really do love her music.  Its the sound that just makes me happy.  I can't explain it, and don't really care what anyone else thinks.  Taylor is a sweet and amazing person who serves as a role model for so many.  It is refreshing to see a honest, moral, decent person be praised for her worth in a world where all to often these are mocked and belittled. 

Though much of her music is about fairy tale love and princesses, the high school experience and first loves, what really speaks from her music is LIFE.  She sings about the trials of love, heartache, dreams and family.  The songs are not just picked by her "people" for her to sing.  She writes them all and sings them all because she lived them all.  This is far more real than some popstar who sing music someone else wrote, that they have to fake emotions for.  When Taylor sings about something, she believes every word and makes you believe as well. 

Her latest single "Mine" is probably my new favorite song and I can't wait for her new album Speak Now which comes out October 25th.  Power to the cute, innocent and happy blonds of the word.  Thank you to Taylor for inspiring us!

Bookworm

There are times when I feel I act like a normal person and do normal things.  And then there are the times when I know that I am a crazy nerd.  Sometimes these "nerd moments" catch me by surprise because it never occurred to me that other people don't do some of these things.  I had a moment such as this yesterday.

I am a total and hopeless bookwork and bibliophile.  Books are my one true love in this world.  I have amassed a fairly decent collection over the last few years and have completely run out of space on my one bookshelf; this is even with the books stacked two rows deep and sideways on top of each other.  Since I would be mortified if my bookshelf broke, I decided it was time to temporarily store away some of my books that I don't read as often.  Although this was a painful process, I managed to to put a way a good stack, leaving my bookshelf unbroken and with a little more room for future additions. 

After I had this stack of books to put in storage, I pulled out my computer so that I could document what books were where.  As I was doing this, my brother walked in the room and immediately began to tease me.  Apparently, as I was informed, it is not a common practice to catalog one's book collection and to label them with a label maker (with my name on the front inside cover).  This second thing is really just a formality as no one besides myself is allowed to remove any of my books from the house.  I was unaware that other people did not take the same care and organization with their books!

I explained the system to my brother, who just laughed and told me I was a nerd.  I then proceeded to show him that I had to keep it organized so I could keep everything in line with my book list.  This is a particular pride of mine.  It is close to 15 pages now of book titles, organized by subject, predicted cost and immediate desirability, that I want to buy/own for my own personal collection.  This presentation was also met with laughter and a smile. 

Moments like these remind me how very different I am from most people in the world. 

Life as you do NOT know it

For a great majority of my life, I have assumed that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.  I followed all of the rules, and I made sure to do as I was told.  I have always been a firm believer in rules; seeing exactly why they are implemented and agreeing with their logic.  However, I have come to understand a simple truth that transcends this.  Following the rules teaches you discipline, strength and moral courage.  But not all rules are meant to be followed.  Some are there to teach to you reach beyond them and decide who you are.  Are you willing to put yourself out there and reach for what you desire?  Or will you let yourself meander in the maze of mediocrity for the rest of a pathetic existence?

I declare a bold challenge to the world:  I know who I am.  I know what I stand for.  I know who I want to become--So try and stop me.  I dare you!

Look out world, cause here I come!