Just a bunch of lists

Over the course of the past five years I've

• Held five different jobs
• Lived in four different places, including another country
• Read 182 books
• Lost two grandparents
• Learned so much.

Things I've loved about living in North Beacon Hill

• The sound of train horns in the night
• Growing tomatoes on the deck with western sun exposure
• View of Puget Sound, SoDo, the stadiums and downtown
• Hearing the cannons at CenturyLink Field go off with every Seahawks touchdown and field goal (which then broadcasts on my TV, delayed)
• Having two ovens
• Delite Bakery, Hair Skill Design, Red Apple
• Walking home from work
• Driving to church in eight minutes
• Reminders and memories of my Grandma Yvonne.

Reasons I love Twitter

• The memes
• Curated news and articles
• Black Twitter
• Subtweets
• Heartwarming viral videos.

Things I loved about working in Belltown

• Walking to the Pacific Science Center
• Getting lunch at Pike Place Market (Michou, DeLaurenti, Mexican Grocery)
• Concerts at Westlake Park
• Watching the biospheres construction
• Sitting/standing desk
• KEURIG
• My co-workers <3. 

"Peak Millennial"

• Thinkpieces
• Irony
• Instagram
• Pressed juice
• Sanctimony
• Binge-watching
• Mash-ups
• Complaining about millennial thinkpieces.

Things I loved about Los Angeles

• How it feels like one giant suburb
• Diaspora communities
• TV/Movie billboards that are six stories tall
• Sunshine, Santa Monica, the PCH
• Feeling like I could happen to run into my favorite screenwriter/director/actor at any time
• East L.A. and the mestizaje vibe
• The overall creative *atmosphere*
• The satisfaction that I was, if but momentarily, a part of the zeitgeist.

Favorite demographic data sources

• Gene Balk, "FYI Guy," The Seattle Times
• Nate Cohn, "The Upshot," The New York Times
• Pew Research Center.

2017 Podcast Roundup

• With Friends Like These, "The Help Is Coming From Inside the House"
  A deeply personal, brutally honest discussion between Ana Marie Cox and Joe Moe on depression, chemical dependency and suicide.  
• Another Round, "A Dude Named Hot Sauce"
  Tracy and Heben conduct a hilarious interview with writer-comedian Yassir Lester about his creative process, pop culture news and funny stories from his adolescence.
• Comedy Bang Bang, "120 Adam Scott, Harris Wittels, Chelsea Peretti"
  Throwback episode from 2011 featuring comedy writer Harris Wittels, actor Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and writer-comedian Chelsea Peretti (then-writer on Parks and Recreation). The improv in this episode had me laughing until I couldn't breathe.
• The Axe Files, "Ep. 128 - Sen. Kamala Harris"
  Substantive, immigration policy and prosecutorial law discussion between David Axelrod, former Chief Strategist to President Obama, and Kamala Harris, former California Attorney General serving her first term as U.S. Senator. Riveting.
• Pod Save America, "He'll run the country from jail like El Chapo"
  Endearing conversation between Jon Favreau (Head Speechwriter), Dan Pfieffer (Strategy and Communications Advisor) and Alyssa Mastromonaco (Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations), as they reminisce on their days in the Obama White House. I read Mastromonaco's book by the way; it was funny and great.
• The Axe Files, "Ep. 120 - J.D. Vance"
  Thoughtful, respectful and analytical discussion between David Axelrod and J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy. Appreciate Vance's perspective on Appalachia, the future of labor and industry, and political conservatism in the Trump era.

Netspeak I find amusing

• mood
• sjw
• soft
• smol
• hbd
• petty
• receipts
• my aesthetic
• it's lit. 

Favorite parts of teaching Sunday school

• All the kids talking over each other because they want to tell me about their week
• Their elation at being able to drink Crystal Light
• Pretend marching around the walls of Jericho with paper plate "trumpets"
• Inadvertently predisposing them to libertarianism by giving them Hershey Nuggets then having tax collector Zacchaeus collect 2/3 of them back
• Yelling "NO SPOILERS!" when a student already knows the Bible story and tries to tell the whole thing to the class
• All tangents leading to Star Wars
• So many Teddy Grahams 
• Being asked, "Do you know what a gangster is?" 

This was fun and maybe I'll do it again. Have an idea for a list you'd like me to write? Request it in the comments.

Reboot

So I'm back to blogging! Hooray! Shut down the site for a bit while I was job searching (prospective employers would probably have been understandably alarmed/concerned if they had perused my social media accounts), but now that I've been hired, I figure I'm more or less in the clear now (though, jury's always still out; I'm an at-will employee).

It's been quite an interesting journey, these past four months of unemployment followed by a month of temporary employment followed by what will (hopefully) be a year of term-limited temporary employment. There's been plenty of time for soul-searching and tears, but thankfully it appears that the worst of the crisis is over. I may not ever fully understand the "whats" and "whys" of the entire Bolivia debacle, but I'm just so glad that chapter is now more or less over. It was definitely scary, and I still cringe knowing that three of my friends are still in that "church," being psychologically and spiritually taken advantage of in a very icky way. Yet, in order to cope, I have had to face the fact that since they do not want to leave, and I have done my part to try and convince them otherwise, the situation must be left in God's hands. I have had to relinquish responsibility and trust that the eventual arc of their lives will bend towards wholeness, wellness and healing, though for the present it is not.

Adulthood can be disorienting at times. I've had so many folks give me well-meaning yet disparate advice of what I should do and how I should live my life, but when it came to Bolivia, and the choices I had to make afterwards, there came a point where I just had to decide to do something and live with the consequences. Bolivia eroded a lot of my self-confidence, especially in my intuition, judgment and discernment. However, living life at a standstill, paralyzed and afraid of making the "wrong" choice, I found, was simply impractical.

I am wary of religious perfectionism, which requires that each and every personal decision made must be tested and approved as the explicit "will of God." This requires much agonizing, weighing of options, and hours of prayer devoted to receiving "confirmation" or God's "blessing" on moving forward with something. Is life really that spiritual? Yes, there is absolutely Biblical precedent for asking God for guidance and direction for important decisions (2 Chronicles 20:12; Acts 13:1-3), but I just am highly skeptical that this level of intense scrying is altogether necessary. God obviously intervenes when there is, in fact, a "wrong" choice to be made (case in point: me returning to Bolivia). However, is every little choice and decision judged in a moral/spiritual scale, implying there are gradations of spiritualized choices, with God keeping score? I've decided this is a miserable way to live, full of regret for what could have been, and fear of what could be (see the psychic headache that is The Adjustment Bureau). Thus, I've nixed this approach to life.

I'm also wary of the other extreme, self-protective human secularism, i.e. taking matters into my own hands and barreling forward in life assuming God approves/I know his will absolutely. This would mean "running after" food, clothing and housing (a la Matthew 6:28-34) as ends in themselves and winding up a materialistic, "self-made" woman. It would also require a certain amount of hard-heartedness towards God (relationship with him is implied/assumed rather than deep/actual), which I'm not willing to stomach. Again, hard pass.

My latest strategy has mostly just been to not really take things so seriously or overthink them. I can be intense, perfectionistic and exacting; so in other words, I'm trying to "lighten up." I'm just trying to respond to situations as they occur and make peace with the fact that I won't always get things right the first time. I'm seeing that there's a lot of safety in knowing God and belonging to him. Sure, due to my own choices, I can get myself into a lot of trouble. That's always going to be a possibility. Yet, having made it out of a couple of pretty dramatic tough scrapes so far, God's care and faithfulness is undeniable.

Is this what it feels like to "wing it"?

In-Between

Today marks the end of the fourth week (!) since I finished up work at University Presbyterian Church. I have been living in Beacon Hill at my grandma's two-bedroom condo, and have been spending much of my time cleaning up and cleaning out the place to get it ready for sale. My grandma has vascular dementia and for more than a year has been living in assisted care facilities while her old condo has remained vacant.

The kitchen and hallway closet which have since been significantly de-cluttered.

Systematically going through different sections of the condo boxing up items to donate to Goodwill, and cleaning (sweeping, mopping, dusting, vacuuming), has been a welcome challenge to tackle in this in-between time prior to my return to Bolivia in January 2016. I am amazed with the sheer amount of unopened items (platters, vases, clothes, pots, pans, mugs, tea pots) Grandma stored in her closets. I assume she intended to either use these things later, or give them to others as gifts.

My favorite things I have stumbled upon so far have been some precious old photos from my dad's childhood and even from grandma's childhood, her high school diploma from Franklin High School and her yearbook (1949). She also tended to save birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas cards from family. Those cards kind of make me sad when I realize she probably would have little to no interest in reading them in her current condition. I am saving them in a box anyway.

As I reflect and pray about my upcoming departure to Bolivia, I am overcome with gratitude and also hit with a considerable dose of sorrow thinking about the dear family and friends I will be leaving in order to serve with the Bolivian church and to engage in God's purposes there. So I am doing my best to be grateful for each day here in Seattle. It's not always comfortable to be in this in-between space between points A (UPC) and B (Bolivia) but I so am thankful for it! Working, resting, waiting, praying, preparing. It is all good!

Sunrise from Grandma's condo

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Ephesians 1:3-4). 

Thankful

One of the perks (among many) of being a young person is having a continual sense of how transitory and fleeting everything is. Like, not in a morbid or Buddhist sense per se but in a grateful way. It's hit me lately that the things I enjoy today, I may not be enjoying five years from now.

For example, my parents and I hosted an Oscars viewing party on Sunday evening and invited my grandparents and my uncle and aunt over. We've done a lot of things like this over the years--had people over to watch football games or other random crap. Nevertheless, I was very thankful for the gathering, just because I don't know how much longer my grandparents will be able to travel, or how much longer I'll be living at home with my parents. I made a huge pot of chili with brown rice and my favorite braised collard greens recipe. My aunt brought over spaghetti with multigrain noodles. My grandparents brought delicious fried chicken from Skyway. It's the same thing we've done time and again and yet I was very grateful for it.

Or I was thinking about how special it was to get together with my close girl friends the day after Valentine's Day and share dinner together. I think about my mom and how her (formerly) close friends have husbands and kids now, and it's much more difficult to get together. Just the fact that my friends can come over and we can play jenga and laugh at our own unfunny jokes and binge-eat chocolate... I'm just really glad that (for now) we can still do that. It's actually incredible that we're still in the same geographic region (again, for now).

Or even last Friday taking light rail from work and getting picked up at the station by my grandpa (like last year when I used to live with him and grandma) and eating piroshkis with them for dinner while watching the six o'clock news.

Or walking to work with my mom at 7:30 in the morning while it's cold and windy, but her hugging me and wishing me a good day--I mean, isn't that sweet?

Or meeting up with my Christian friends for coffee and knowing deep down that they care about what's going on in my life and the things that I think and stuff?

These fleeting moments of togetherness with the people dear to me--I've really been taking them to heart lately. I don't know where I'll be two years from now; I don't even know where I'll be one year from now! All the same, though, life is good.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God. Thank you, Lord.
-my standard before-dinner prayer

Werking Gurl

A four-day workweek followed by a three-day workweek. Score!

More updates on work:

• What I'm really starting to enjoy about the position it’s all about staying organized
• I usually start off the day with five 5x7" sticky notes full of tasks and by the end of the day I only have one left, or sometimes none. Now that's what I call satisfying. Eeeeh.
• My supervisor commended me on two things I did last week! 1) Formatting and polishing materials to be presented to the department director “She loved them!” and 2) Prepping a PowerPoint presentation template for a housing conference debrief. Re: the second point--I just heard her laugh out loud in her office and then I got an IM from her saying, "This powerpoint looks perfect!" Whew.
•  There's a free employee gym in the basement!! So it's not great. The ceiling's low and unfinished (exposed pipes and insulation). There are only seven cardio machines. The ventilation is terrible so if you're so unlucky as to be next to someone with B.O. you must endure the stench for your entire workout. Group exercise classes are a few women imitating an aerobics video on a 25-inch standard-def (as in 3:4 aspect ratio) TUBE telly (this is real, ppl). Whatever. It's a means of cycling or ellipticalling out all the stress of my job on the days when Seattle decides to be Seattle-like (as in downpours and windy and such). 
• I'm really fascinated by all of the financial stats that're crossing my desk. Dude, this is big MONAY. The 2013/2014 budget was just approved (~$92 million for my division, again). And, like, seeing the grant letters (like for $150,000!) is just crazy. Whooooa. So that's where all the places I interned at got their operating funds. AhhhhhhHHHH. It's all making so much SENSE.
• My co-workers are feeling comfortable enough around me to swear. This is a big deal. HAHAHA. I'm talkin' about the eff-bomb here.
• It's still stressful, so I get anxious when I think about going back to work tomorrow, but I just keep telling myself that THURSDAY is TURKEEEE.

In other news, my trusty 30GB video iPod is dead. It lasted me seven years. RIP, iPod. May you be properly recycled in a way that minimizes toxins in the air and doesn’t create environmental dangers for communities in the developing world. My wealthy father has chosen to bequeath me his extra iPod touch that he had laying around the house. So, all is well, my friends. All is well.

Ugh, why do I have to be so sarcastic all of the time?

Another piece of news: I may have unwittingly embroiled myself in a Jane Bennett/Charles Bingly-esque relationship. What to do, what to do. 

I'm dying, you're dying; we're all dying.

Time to write down more things that I'm pondering. The topic of choice has lately been death and dying (don't worry, I'm going to do the best that I can to end this on a hopeful note). With my grandparents' declining health, death has been in the back of my mind for over a year now, but recently it's back to #1 on the MindCharts. My grandpa's brother Marsh died last month and our family attended his funeral on Berkeley, California on August 11th. They showed a clip of him singing in his church choir and everyone just burst out crying. O, WERE THAT MY HEAD WERE A FOUNT OF TEARS.

Me & Uncle Marsh

You know how in lots of movies, characters out of the blue start acting like their best selves right before they die? I mean, think of the grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine or Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. I definitely had a moment like that the last time I saw Uncle Marsh. It was in February at my cousin Justine's wedding. If I could sum up Uncle Marsh is one word it would be verve. At Justine and Sam's reception he twirled me around on the dance floor old skool swing-style, even though they were blasting the mindless techno-pop of the masses. Although I have no formal training and looked awkward & stilted compared to Uncle Marsh's precise steps, I felt so happy and unself-conscious stomping away with him--not a care in the world. That's my last living memory I have of him. Fit for a movie.

Until Uncle Marsh had grandchildren (in 2003), I always believed myself to be his favorite. He often came on vacations with our family (as in Grandpa & Grandma, their progeny and the progeny of their progeny), even if they were in Washington. One time when we were playing around in the river near our cabin in Crystal Mountain, he specially removed the bark from a two-foot long tree branch and shined it up with the natural oils from his hands. Okay, this sounds totally random and odd, but I seriously treasured that stick. I'm sad that I lost it.

Holding that precious stick!

I was thinking yesterday in church about how God can basically take away anything or anyone from us, whenever he wants. Dude, the Buddhists were onto something with the whole "impermanence" thing. And accepting this truth is what makes anything valuable at all. I value my relationship with my Grandpa because I know that at any moment I can lose him to death.

By talking about this I am in no way suggesting that everyone take self-protective measures and never become attached to anyone ever because they're all just going to die anyway. Ugh, GET BEHIND ME, NIHILISM! Nah, that's a miserable way to live life.

I would like to suggest an alternative. I would argue that it's possible to simultaneously (1) hold in mind the reality and inevitability of death while (2) maintaining joy and appreciation for life. Actually, think of (1) and (2) having a directly proportional relationship--the more we (1) stay "grounded" and mindful of our powerlessness against the forces of death, we (2) treasure the what few moments we have left in this thing called "life" all the more. (+/+)

Okay, obviously these thoughts are nothing new, but they're good to revisit now and then when I feel on the brink of despair. Death, decay, decomposition--they're unstoppable. Duh. It's weird but sometimes people seem to die in droves, and when that happens, it's tough to keep ya' head up. It's so easy to fall into the "Y EVERY1 DYING MY LYFE IS MEANINGLESS" but I try and rally and tell myself to FIGHT to just appreciate life and its treasures, even when I feel like those very things are being ripped from me. Ugh, sorry, this is just totally abstract, but I'm making peace with myself--this is just how I roll so deal with it. I would like to end with an overused yet apropos quote.

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Dr. Seuss, take your pick (source disputed)

"Maladaptive" Coping Mechanisms

What exactly constitutes a "maladaptive" coping behavior?

I've been mulling over this question a lot lately. With little to no structure to my life as of late, I've been very cognizant of how I spend my free time. It's gotten me to think about how a lot of what I do with my free time is a way to "deal" or cope with life.

The world is harsh. It's brutal. I mean, duh. We live in ambiguity because life is a mix of seemingly senseless and overwhelming tragedy as well as larger than life happiness that we share with others. How does one manage to stay away from becoming a "Pollyanna" (denying anything "wrong" with the world) on one hand, while at the same time not become an Eeyore (everything is bad, so why ever expect it to be good? P.S. I suck). So anyway, people have various ways of "dealing"/staying sane. 

The traditional conception of "acceptable" ways to deal are usually graphically represented in a multi-colored triangle or Venn diagram. Maintaining your sanity is "simply" a manner of attending to all of the different dimensions of yourself: your emotional self, your spiritual self, your physical self, your social self, your psychological self--and on and on and on. 

I decided that after graduation, as a way to practice "self-care," that I was going to try and avoid exposing myself to so much trauma through one-on-one work with trauma survivors, etc. However, it seems that trauma/suffering is just, like, EVERYWHERE (our neighbors six houses down the street just got robbed in broad daylight for crying out loud). I've learned that running away from human suffering just isn't the answer. YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE! MUAHAHAHAHAHA.

So anyway, here are some of the ways that I try and "deal" with the tragedy of human existence:

1. SITCOM MEDIA/EASY ANSWERS LANE/HAPPY ENDINGS HAPPYCLOUDLAND: Any movie, TV show or book with an oversimplified, overwrought, contrived plot with a happy ending--I'm sold. Why settle for the unpredictability and messiness of real life when you can enjoy a formula of (1) trivial "conflict" that ends in a (2) "life lesson" all for the price of 25 minutes! My favorite sitcoms lately have been Community and Parks and Recreation. Movie of choice? I Hate Luv Storys. Who wouldn't love a goofy opposites-attract movie where poor people don't exist and everyone is young and beautiful?
2. SUBSTANCE USE: Okay, so far I haven't acted on my inclinations, but  the world is just so sad and messed up that I get these sudden urges to binge-drink alcohol. I now begin to understand why chemical dependency is so prevalent in society. Life is so intense sometimes that NOT feeling anymore sounds veeerrrrry appealing. I'll take anything to not feel overwhelmed anymore. Tell me if I'm wrong.
3. FOOD: I have literally caught myself having feelings of anxiety, going to the kitchen and eating a cookie/muffin and then experiencing the anxiety dissipate, if but for a short period of time. Food comforts me, so binge eating is a way to try and maximize that comforting feeling...that is, until I'm bloated and disgusted with myself. Lawl.
4. VOYEURISM/WASTING AWAY ON THE INTERNET: Life is much simpler if you leave it to actors and celebrities to live it for you. HAH! Rather than actually talk with my family, we'll watch a movie about a fictional family and call it a day. I hate when people say "It's so ironic," BUT IN THIS CASE IT IS! #meta Also, I'm sometimes given to uncontrollable bouts of surfing Wikipedia, reading the most random personal details about actors, actresses and musicians. Then I walk away from the computer three hours later in a daze, feeling ashamed like I've just eaten five bags of Doritos. 
5. TRANSCENDENT SPIRITUAL TRUTHS/PRAYER: It's a lot easier to "deal" when I can rely on the fact that although people are LITERALLY getting away with MURDER every single day, that ultimately there will be a "final judgment" where Jesus will cast those no good S.o.B.'s that prey on vulnerable women and children into the FIRES OF HELL. Muahahahahahaha! "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord" (Romans 12:19). There's also this idea of "Well, God knows what he's doing" sooo...Why blame him for everything? Blahblahblah, free will vs. grace/Why do bad things happen to good people/I AM STILL GRAPPLING WITH THIS O.K., PPL?!

Okay, so obviously, this list is not exhaustive. However, it really makes me wonder, what sorts of coping behaviors are "acceptable"/"permissible" and which are considered "maladaptive?" The trendy phrase these days seems to be "Everything in moderation." Add that to a layer of post-modernist relativism and you get the conclusion that each person alone knows which coping behaviors are maladaptive for them and at what magnitude they become maladaptive. 

HAHAHA, wow, so basically we've learned nothing.

But back to talking about me (I love the self-indulgent nature of blogs!). I definitely am aware of my actions. I have an intuitive sense of when I've "gone too far" and am using a specific coping behavior as a means to escape/avoid my current feelings or the "reality of the world" or whatever. But now I'm thinking, is it even desirable to be always "on," to be always "present" and feeling 100% and aware and sensitive and self-reflective? I mean, that just sounds tiring to me.

This past year one thing I've committed to is the notion of "Be gentle on yourself." You know, don't expect so much from yourself.. don't be super hard on yourself. .don't exigir a level of productivity that's simply beyond your own capacity..

My tentative conclusion on the matter is this: I will allow myself to escape every once in awhile through  TV, through food, through humor.. but ultimately these moments of escapism are a temporary diversion from grappling with and struggling with and seeking to understand the greater matters of life. All of these nagging questions, they're going to haunt me relentlessly until I air them, talk about them with trusted family and friends, pray about them, gain more experience with them--and I really am a firm believer in this process...the stages of conflict, disbelief, struggle, confusion, despair...because I believe that ultimately I will arrive somewhere. My understanding may not be complete, but it will be deeper. I'll be able to handle the complexity and subtlety with a defter hand. 

The product of SEEKING THE TRUTH is gaining the tools to navigate the very ambiguity you try to avoid.

¿Me explico?

Adjusting

The start of the school year has hit me like a train. In a word, college is intense. Already I'm juggling multiple transitions: from living with my parents to living with my grandma and grandpa, from living in the U District to commuting to school & to practicum  from Rainier Beach (this is really upsetting me) and from luxurious sabbatical summer days to academia (textbooks, assignments, etc.). The question I ask myself is, "How am I possibly going to make it?"

Today it was very therapeutic to sing on the worship team for church service. I was able to unload all of the anxiety, frustration, anger and fear I was feeling--just puke it all out for God to see.

This year will definitely be an adjustment and I'm really fighting all of the changes. Being adaptable and flexible is not my strongest suit. Anyhow, we'll see how this week goes. Praying for things to be less overwhelming. I'm thankful for my family & friends who have been so supportive. I need the encouragement!

It's going to be all right!!

Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh

Took a morning Pilates class for the first time at the local gym today. The only Pilates I'd ever done before was at 30 minute Mari Winsor tape, and I'd only done that to please my mom. Hahaha...

Oh man, it was a crack up! There were about four diehard women that the instructor, Perla, knew by first name. I mean, these women were crazy strong!! But then in the back there were these three random slacker men that made me laugh out loud every time I glanced their way. We had to do this intense ab exercise--20 reps--and halfway through I was starting to get tired, UGH! But then I looked behind me at those three men and this is what I saw:

Two of them were just lying there on their backs, legs bent, not moving at all. They'd simply quit and didn't care. The last guy, Lord bless him, was doing some form of crunches, but not very successfully.

Oh man, and those four buff women in the front were taking themselves all seriously with their perfect muscle tone and control, not shaking at all as we finished up the last rep.

Just goes to show, the "no pain no gain" attitude is only for type A's. I'm so thankful those men were there today, cuz they added some much needed perspective. I mean, If you're tired, man, just quit. Life's too short to torture yourself for the sake of "fitness."

;-P