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Showing posts from 2016

Claire's Top Five Worst Christmas Movies

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You've been waiting all month for it. You've watched several yourself. And now it's here. Claire's Top Five Worst Christmas Movies. Disclaimer: I actually only watched twelve. There are probably hundreds more but I ran out of time and mental capacity. The seven that aren't ranked will get honorable mention at the bottom. 5. A Dogwalker's Christmas Tale From the opening scene, it's already impossible to take the movie seriously. The main character, what's-her-face, springs up from bed exclaiming "5 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!" It gets better when she meets up with her boyfriend to exchange Christmas presents, only for him to say "I didn't know we were dating." And then she gets all huffy because as it turns out, he also doesn't like Christmas. Then she goes crazy and yells something like,  "I am a flavorful, flawless peppermint milk and you're some day old coffee with a dinky packet of splenda."  Classic, right

The Reluctant Graduate

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Yeah, that's me.  The reluctant graduate. As as much as I'd like to say that I'm so excited that I finished my undergraduate degree with a double major in History and German, I'm not too fond of endings .  Especially endings of things I love. Let's take the present example. I'm one of those people who flourished in the regular school system.  Classrooms were my favorite places. I liked group discussions. I loved lectures. I was happy writing papers. I even appreciated a good test.  My German and history classes taught me loads about broadening my perspective, thinking analytically, and finding depth and beauty i n both the past and other cultures. My undergrad was an excellent breeding ground for learning. Like when I went to Italy and learned how to hold a pigeon. But that was just a small lesson. In addition to the actual schooling, I was blessed with the best student jobs I could have asked for--ones that gave me superb mentors , price

A Pustule of Emotion

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“I cry a lot. My emotions are very close to my surface. I don’t want to hold anything in so it festers and turns into pus—a pustule of emotion that explodes into a festering cesspool of depression.” –Nicolas Cage I wrote once that I felt like I had the emotional capacity of a teaspoon. I think I’d read that somewhere else, so it’s probably plagiarism if I say that was an original tough, but I felt like it suited me. I valued intellect and ambition as a teenager and as much as I did feel emotions and try to love, I know I hardly ever let myself truly feel all the emotions my soul wanted me to experience. In the past few years, I’ve made some more conscious efforts and decisions to feel more. To feel better. (Better as an adverb.) And sometimes that sucks. Because it means I cry more. It means I feel less stable. It means I’m more at war with myself trying to figure out how I feel and how to act upon those feelings. Sometimes it’s easy to discern. Sometimes it’s not.

Let Walls Fall.

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Today is November 9th. 27 years ago, the Berlin Wall came down.  Today is November 9th. 78 years ago, the violence of Kristallnacht brought destruction to Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues, killing around 100 Jews. Today is November 9th. What kind of November 9th are we living in? I hope we live in a world where we try to break down walls instead of build them, where we focus on our shared humanity while also valuing our diversity. I hope we are trying to create a world where love overpowers hate. Regardless of political ideologies. I woke up on today, November 9th , with an aching heart. Wondering if my dream about trying to protect the gold and black peacocks in BYU's library was as real as watching the election unfold. An election that few had enjoyed. An election where many felt like they would lose either way. The peacocks weren't real.  The election was. And I couldn't help feeling America had lost. We elected a man whose big

A World of Octobers

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You know those perfectly perfect moments ? Those moments that are so good you have to use an adverb to describe its adjective counterpart? Those moments where ecstasy fills your soul and you just know that you couldn't be more content than this very second? Those moments are  rare. But they are powerful. And they are wonderful. You want to be able to take out a bottle that will magically hold that precious moment forever but even as you have this thought, you know the moment is slipping away... I used to think these moments would disappear and never return. In a way, they do. But in another way, they do. Just modified. Because if I have learned anything from the quarter of a century I've been breathing, it's that good things keep coming . Whether times are good or bad, the future always holds good . I was especially reminded of that this past month-- a month that made me so grateful that I live in a world of Octobers. Never before have I apprec