Franklin Covey Keeps Me Sane

This morning I was getting ready for work and listening to my most recent favorite Pandora station, when a song I'd never heard before came on. It was called Mileage by Brian Vander Ark, and it was beautiful. Sort of an escapist, spontaneity encouraging song. I stopped what I was doing and sat on the bathroom counter and listened to the song, and I made me ache for a road trip to somewhere sunny and warm. When it was over I turned off Pandora and had to spend about ten minutes convincing myself not to run out to my car and drive to California by myself. I had to remind myself that I had to go to work, I had classes on Monday, I had commitments for the weekend, I needed to be responsible.  So I finished getting ready, went to work for six hours and missed all the sunshine the day had to offer, and then spent the evening mostly having fun with friends, while in the back of my mind wondering what would have happened if I had just left. But that's not what I do, and thats not who I am, and I decided thats okay. So what if I need to plan my fun in advance? So what if I take my obligations and responsibilities seriously? So what if just the thought of being spontaneous makes me nervous? Thats why I have friends and people I love in my life. Because we aren't all the same. I need friends like Reyna and Matt and Joey to make me stay up till two in the morning watching movies or go on cattle roundups, and they need me to plan birthday parties and make sure everyone is well fed and taken care of. How lame would life be if we were all the same? So I'll go on being responsible most of the time, and keep on making friends with people who can give me a shove when I'm being too responsible. And yes, my closet is categorized by type of clothing and subcategorized by color, my books are organized into genres and within genre by author, and I've been using Franklin Covey planners since I was about sixteen. And you know what? I like it that way!

I can only dream of something this beautiful . . .

A New Kind of Christmas Wish List

So instead of making a list of all of the things I want to be given, I've decided to to make a list of all of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season. That way I can be responsible for whether or not my wants are met, because its up to me to make them happen! Most of the things on my list will involve other people though, because the best part of Christmas is sharing it with my friends and family!


1) Decorate a Christmas Tree With My Friends and Roommates
2) Bake Cinnamon Pound Cake and Deliver It With a Smile (Just like my mom does!)
3) Have Lots of Christmas Sing-A-Longs Around the Piano (Especially since I have a roommate with an AMAZING voice)
4) Bake and Decorate LOTS of Sugar Cookies
5) Decorate a Gingerbread House (Maybe one with my friends, and definitely one with my little Chan babies back home)
6) Put Christmas Lights Up in My Bedroom
7) Go Caroling and Finish With Hot Apple Cider at My House!
8) Watch All of the Important Christmas Movies!
          *Its A Wonderful Life
          *The Bishop's Wife
          *The Snowman
          *A Christmas Carol
          *National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
          *Elf
          *Home Alone I&II
          * Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
          *Santa Claus is Coming to Town
          *Frosty the Snowman
           *etc.,


These are all things that I would love to be able to do this Christmas season, but if I don't get to it will be because I am having too much fun doing other Christmas things I have yet to be introduced to with my friends and family! Because the whimsy and magic of Christmas is not about getting everything checked off of MY list, but helping the people I love get things checked off of THEIR lists. Merry Christmas!

Fabulous Fall Centerpiece Inspiration!

So this looks like such a fun idea! You can get people to write things they're thankful for on the little cards before-hand, and then put it on the branches and make it a fun little Thanksgiving centerpiece! This is definitely something I can get my niece and nephews involved in, it should be lots of fun. Check out the link!

http://www.bhg.com/decorating/seasonal/autumn/fabulous-fall-centerpieces/?page=2

Tissue Paper Pom-Poms

These are so cute and pretty and look really easy to make! Next time I throw a party or need a little extra cheerfulness in my room, I know what I'll be doing. Check out the link to see how its done, its way easier than you might think!

http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/tissue-paper-pom-poms-how-to?backto=true#slide_0

Remember how in California winter meant rain and temperatures in the low 60's and high 50's?

Well its happened the past three years that I've lived here in Provo, so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that it happened a fourth year in a row. Snow in October, snow before Halloween! Fall has barely had a chance to show off its colors, and winter is already trying to get in and upstage it.  

                     

How rude! Its less than ideal to have snow on the ground before December or at least before the day after Thanksgiving. But it seems downright wrong, almost immoral, to have snow before Halloween. It like mother nature is encroaching on the territory of fall, just skipping right over it the way department stores skip over Halloween and Thanksgiving and go straight to Christmas. Its not very nice of mother nature, and I must say I'm rather disappointed in her. Again, you would think by now I would stop being surprised by the early snow, but it made me almost start crying. I immediately began to question the wisdom of living here in Provo and think less of BYU and their great academic programs, cheap tuition, and morally irreproachable atmosphere. Is it really worth it? IS IT?!! Come June when it stops snowing I'll remember that it is, but between now and then I'll have to be constantly reassuring myself that its a good idea and be on the look out for things that make up for the weather.

LURVE

Ralph Waldo Emerson Wants Us to Bloom Where We're Planted

"To laugh often and much;

to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better,

whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;

to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

this is to have succeeded."

Magritte's The Empire of Light

Yet another find at book repair. I was working on a book containing a comprehensive collection of Magritte's works as well as a bibliography, and discovered many new beautiful images. Unfortunately I was not able to find copies of most my favorites online, but since this particular piece is fairly well known it was readily available. It gives a good look into the style and feeling of Magritte as a painter, but its hard to see the whimsy that he is so good at capturing. I found that he was good at capturing moments, as well as making fun of those moments. This picture gives a beautiful example of his skill at capturing movement, the water seems to be awake and alive. One of my favorite things about 

Magritte as an artist was his appreciation of women and their natural beauty. He had many busts and paintings of women and the female form, and I can't recall any of them that were stick figures wearing pounds of make-up. He used paintings of female forms without heads to represent the way in which our society can tend to see women as objects or items, rather than living, breathing, feeling, women. Any time an artist is able to capture and criticize an aspect of society that they disagree with, they have my respect. I admire most the artists who use their talent to not only create beautiful things, but to express their own beliefs and truths to others. Some are not able to express their views through words and ideas, and so they turn to other mediums and outlets. Magritte uses his skill as an artist to express his own sense of whimsy and beauty and truth, and I'm grateful that I have been able to see and hopefully understand something about him and his personality and beliefs.

Another Lucky Find

While repairing a book on the life and paintings of Jean Fragonard, I was happy to stumble upon such a beautiful painting. A fair amount of his paintings were of cherubs and fairies, wealthy lovers and fat, rosy cheeked children, and lacked a certain depth that usually attracts me to a piece of art. But this particular painting manages to reflect Fragonard's warmth and cheerfulness, while still portraying a believable moment in a girl's life. The attitude and expression of the girl's face is far more natural seeming to me than many posed smiles or lofty looks in other portraits of the same era. I imagine that the girl was told to pose while reading and, if she were anything like myself and it was even a half-decent book, she became caught up in the story and forgot to affect a look of coy enjoyment or sophisticated contempt. The rich, warm, yellow tones of the painting are very appealing and make the girl seem far more real and breathe life into the painting. I love working in a place where one day I can just happen to find a painting that I love, and the next day and I run across a beautiful poem, and then next day I can get sucked into reading a new and exciting story. Not to mention the amazing things it has done for my stores of random trivia knowledge.

The Reader by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Wind and Window Flower by Robert Frost

LOVERS, forget your love,
  And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
  And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
  Was melted down at noon,
And the cagèd yellow bird
  Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,
  He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
  To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
  Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
  And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
  He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
  Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
  To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
  And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
  And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
  A hundred miles away

Its beautiful and terrifying at the same time

Baile Tehuantepec

Diego Rivera

I work in the Book Repair Deptartment of the BYU library, and I run across some pretty interesting books as I work. In the past few weeks my favorites were How to Lie With Statistics, Zsa Zsa Gabor's How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, and How to Get Rid of a Man, and a book containing Diego Rivera's complete works. Its been making me miss California real hard. And not just because the paintings often have that southwest, Mexico feel, but because so many of his paintings were murals done in public places and beautiful homes. You were a lot more likely to run across public art in California than here in Provo or up in Kennewick where my family lives now. Even though I grew up in a small town, it seemed like there was more value placed on the beautification of public places than there is out here. There may not have been a whole lot of people in town, but the places we visited were always asthetically pleasing, unlike here in Utah where the goal seems to be to get as much building or advertisement as possible into every space. Views are blocked, spaces are crowded, and everything seems to sprawl without direction or meaning. It makes me feel like a hamster thrown into one of those complex system of tubes. Everything is well maintained and organized, but its full of unnecessary turns and hills that could have been avoided if anyone had taken a little while to plan instead of just connecting tube after tube. As Anne would say, there is absolutely no scope for imagination in a place like this!

Gasp!

I only have nine days left in India? Inconceivable! No really, I am having serious trouble comprehending the fact that I'm leaving here and going back home in less than two weeks. I will never forget the first day I spent here, and my family will probably never forget the first time I called home and couldn't stop crying long enough to form coherent sentence. For those first couple of days it felt like four months was forever, but then somehow I got caught up and lost in all of my work and in the joy of the people I was meeting and interacting with and the beauty that wasn't hard to find once I stopped crying long enough for my tears to dry. I never would have thought that living in a country on the other side of the world could teach me so much about myself. I knew that I would have the opportunity to learn many things about India's history and culture, as well as learning more about the rest of the world of which I now feel I belong. As my dad keeps telling me, now that I've made through this I know that can make it through anything! Not that its all been fun trips to the beach and sari shopping . . .

Things I Will Not Miss

• Squatter toilets
• Over-sized crows
• Squeaky Chipmunk/Squirrel things
• Boiled ochre twice a day
• Open sewage systems

Things I Will Definitely Miss

• All of my new Indian friends
• Streets lined with bushes that blossom every day
• Spending nights under the stars on the rooftop
• Swimming in the Indian Ocean
• Play cards on the second floor balcony and enjoying the night breezes

So a few weeks ago my camera battery died, and then my camera charger disappeared, and then my camera was either lost or stolen. So I went a bought a replacement and got a little picture happy and took tons of photos, some of which I'll post here. Some of my favorites are pictures of all of the cool houses in between the house where I sleep and the Program House, were I have Telugu class and where the cooks live and prepare and serve all of our meals.

Field Work

So here are some pictures from my most recent group meeting. My translator and I went and met with the women right outside their homes, so I got to meet and play with all of the children while the women were filling out the surveys. It was the Indian version of a cul-de-sac, with two and three story buildings on three sides, making a U-shaped area facing onto the street. All of the children and the women and the old people and the animals all sit outside in the little common area in between the houses, and there was really a great community, neighborhood feel to the whole place. Anyways, nearly all of them begged to have their pictures taken, and I was more than happy to oblige. Also included is a picture of all of the women in the group whose meeting I observed.

Another Adventure

Well it seems a little silly, but on Saturday we finally went to the beach! We had stopped and wandered on the sand a little before, but never gone and spent a whole day there. We drove FOREVER so that we could get far enough outside the city to find cleaner water and beaches, and fewer people to stare at us. It was so exciting to run into the water and not have it be bone-numbing cold! I had a blast with my friends, wading out further than I've ever been, and actually going underwater and swimming around a little. We had fun bobbing in and diving under the waves, and I even accidentally did a little body-surfing at one point, although that didn't end too well. Turns out once you start riding the wave, its pretty hard to control when or where you stop. It was a beautiful day though, and I ended it by walking up and down the shore with a very sweet little old Indian man who helped me pick out some beautiful seashells. Unfortunately no one really thought to bring a camera, so I've only got one my picture to share from that glorious day. Below that are a few pictures of me and my favorite of our cooks, Durga, with our little Diwali lamps lit us next to us.

The Festival of Lights

Saturday October 17th was India's favorite holiday, Diwali! And just like with every other festival here in India, people started celebrating it about a week before it actually began, and have yet to stop. To celebrate, we were all invited to the community center of a group of Muslim people that one of our students (John) has been working with and befriended in the course of his research. At the start of the evening all of us girls were cajoled into playing some 'throw-ball' with all of the women and the older girls. Its really as simple as it sounds; you have a team on either side of a volley-ball net, and you just toss the ball over and they catch it then throw it back. You score points and rotate just like volleyball, except you serve by throwing the ball over the net instead of hitting it. It sounds like a pretty mellow game, but boy were we wrong! All of the women started changing into their tennis shoes, and showing how to tie our scarves across our front like a sash so that it doesn't fall off while we play. These women were so intense! And they made it look so easy to throw the ball from the far end of the court to other, but the first time I tried it my ball didn't even make over our side of the net! It turns out there is a definite technique to throwing correctly in throw ball. After I figured out the game though I did pretty well, and they seemed pretty surprised that a little weakling American could keep up with them at their own game. I definitely earned some respect for my throw-ball skills!

After we finished the match- my team won 2 games to 1 :) -the men took over the court and played real volleyball, except with a soccer ball! Ouch! While they played, the women sat around and talked about life and gossiped with each other. It was fun getting to know them and they were eager to include us in their group and help us feel at ease. So many of the women there had advanced degrees, children, and a professional life. It is also amazing to me how many languages people here now. Many of them speak English, Hindi, Telugu, Arabic, Urdu, and other languages as well. It makes my little 2 and 1/2 seem pathetic. Anyways . . . Once the men finished their game we all sat down to dinner, where I was excited to see some chicken! Our cooks are all Hindu and vegetarian so they only cook meat once in a while. The fact that the chicken was so spicy that my lips went kind of numb and tingly didn't detract from the excitement.

Once dinner was finished and cleared away, we got to the real celebration of Diwali; fireworks! Here they call them all firecrackers, but Indian firecrackers should really not be confused with our measly little USA fireworks. They only things they passed out to us Americans were little sparklers -People are always worried that we're too delicate and can't handle the same things they can- but even their sparklers were bigger and more powerful and had further flying sparks. Here in India all types of fireworks are legal everywhere, including the big mortar ones that we normally only see in professional shows. And the people here seem to love this one kind of cracker, not sure what the name is, that does nothing but make a huge booming noise. Its probably the same kind of flash bomb the CIA uses to disperse protesters, thats how loud it is. The scariest part of the whole thing is how young the kids are that they let light off the fireworks! Some of them could not possibly have been older than 5 or 6. Kids that I wouldn't even let play with a sparkler on their own are given free reign with a lighter stick and whatever kind of firework they can get their little hands on.

Regardless of the danger, it was definitely a very very fun night! Their little community center was such a peaceful little retreat, with lush trees and flowers everywhere, and their beautiful mosque. Its in the middle of the city, but its surrounded by a wall thats at least 12 feet tall so you would never know it. Its just a beautiful little oasis in the middle of a rather hectic, loud, raccous city and I really enjoyed our evening there.

The next night, one of our sweet cooks Durga shyly asked me if I would help her get the Diwali lamps ready. I was so excited that she wanted me to help her! She had pot thirty or forty shallow little clay dishes/pots, which we filled with sunflower oil. We then twisted strands of cotton into wicks and placed on in each little dish. We then placed the lamps all along the half-wall that closes in the porch/balcony which runs all across the front of the second-floor program house. She found a wax candle for me, and then let me light all of our little lamps. It was such a beautiful sight! All of the little lights flickering in the dark, it was a very fun project and a very happy night. Durga and I were very proud of our work, and called everyone out to see it. One of the students, my friend Dan, took some pictures of the lamps and of Durga and I, which I will post soon.

I'm keeping busy with my research, and I absolutely cannot believe how quickly my time here has gone by! I am definitely excited to come back home and see my family and take a real shower, but I will be very sad to leave here. I certainly hope this is not the last time I will get to be in India, I have a feeling it will pull me back again eventually.

Pictures to follow shortly!

Pictures from Hyderabad

Eating a fresh pomegranate in front of Charminar. That was a happy day!

The main mosque near Charminar, named Makkah Masjic, and me! See, I was really there!

I really like this picture, with the arches all lined up. It was definitely worth jumping into the middle of the street for.




The Best Western Hotel, that's actually a super awesome castle! You can't even see all of the towers and turrets and what not. Very nifty.

Hyderabad

Sorry for the lengthy gap in posts, I've been keeping pretty busy out here in India! I've been back from Hyderabad for

about a week, and its been a super busy week! But here's the story!

We took a 'sleeper train' there on Sunday night, and not gonna lie it was pretty nifty. It was air conditioned which was glorious, and we each had our own little bunk against the wall. It was so much fun!!! It was like the knight bus combined with the hogwarts express, and on the way there I was so excited about the train that I took forever to fall asleep. Our hotel was good; very clean, air conditioned, not a whole lot of decorations or foofiness, but definitely clean and safe. We spent our days going around the city, led by one of our group's two boys (John). He actually spent six months of his mission in Hyderabad, so he knew the city really well and knew a lot of people living there. The whole city is built around this man-made lake that was created in the 1700 hundreds, and in the middle of the lake is a giant rock with a giant statue of . . . you guessed it, Buddha! We went to a park right at the edge of the lake and part of our group went out on boats and got to get off at the rock the statue is on and walk around for a while, but my stomache was feeling a little unsettled and I didn't think a boat ride would help much. Later that day we went to another Hindu temple, but this one was way cooler than any of the other ones we've been to. It was a really big temple with lots of different levels and stair cases, and when you went ot the very top you could see the whole city spread out around you as far as the eye could see. I was really upset that we weren't allowed to bring cameras into the complex, but when the temple guards carry ak-47s you tend to do what they tell you to do. The whole temple complex was built of pure white marble, and it was amazingly clean! Usually the temples are just as dirty as the rest of the town, but this place was sparkling clean. Granted, we did have to take our shoes off before we could go inside. And on our way from the park to the temple we walked past this huge castle and it turned out to be a Best Western Hotel! On the other days we did a whole lot of shopping and eating (the food there was SO GOOD!!!), and went to a few museums. But the coolest thing we did was to go to the Old City District, to visit Charminar (look it up on wikipedia, its pretty cool). It was really cool because we got to go there on the last day of Ramadan, when all of the Muslim people were celebrating and gathering with their friends and family to celebrate. We went back again a few days later. The streets were packed with Muslim men, and most of the women were dressed in head to toe black burkas. Some of them even had black veils on so you couldn't even see their eyes like you normally can. The city was built centuries ago by Muslims who had conquered the Hindu Indians at that time, and it is considered the Islamic center of India.

Anyways! I bought four fabulous pairs of shoes, so I'm fantastically happy! I also bought a whole bunch of perfume, becasue in Hyderabad they make it in a special way so its unique throughout the world. Because Muslims aren't allowed to drink alcohol, some of them take it further and say that no alcohol should even touch their bodies, so some Muslim men started making oil-based perfume instead of alcohol-based perfume, and he set up shop in Hyderabad and people there have been copying him ever since! The don't really sell perfume the way we think of it either. They sell individual scents, like I bought Jasmine, Sandalwood, Amber, and this wildflower stuff, but they are all in their individual bottle. I got a couple others but I can't remember what their English names are. I just liked the way they smelled! ALSO! I bought a pearl necklace. Like a real string of pearls that came with a certificate of authenticity, ivory/cream colored, round pearls. Its just a single strand, very simple, very elegant and classy, they're not too big and they're not colored funny and they're glorious!! I feel like a grown-up lady now, and it makes me very happy. Thats the update for now! I'll post pictures next time, probably later today.

More Pictures

I saw this sign at a local academy for girls/women that we visited, and thought it was fun how it sounds like the first part of BYU's motto; enter to learn, go forth to serve

And then when we came back down the staircase and I saw THIS sign, I started wondering what kind of copywright laws India has . . .

Ok so this is fairly random but its very pretty. It was just near one of the places we were visitng, and I liked it. I actually think my friend John took this picture.
We visited a nearby village that has a weaving co-op set up, and we got to see them card, spin, dye, and weave the cotton and other fabrics. Pretty nifty!
This is the lovely Lova in yellow, and her beautiful older sister Durga behind her.