you are loved my friend

I often find myself struggling to give and receive love. Maybe i'm too hard on myself, but I leave certain or most encounters feeling as though I didn't properly convey just how much they matter, just how important they are to me or otherwise. Maybe some situations don't require such reassurances (and I'm only overthinking... par for the course). Sure it's easy on a blog to write about how much people mean to me and how much they matter, but if we don't share love human to human then what does it really matter anyway? Maya Angelou once said that people may not remember all the things you said or did, but they will always remember how you make them feel. In a community sense, we bring light into our friends and families lives. I might have a dark living room while someone else has a dark kitchen, we all need light differently, yet still we all need it. 

In this day and age when technology is at it's height (I know I know.. I'm not trying to get on another rant.. I promise) it's easy to try to smother people with assuring, loving texts and calls and shout outs on insta. But we can't forget about the people we encounter in our day-to-day lives. The ones that are there, in person, standing in front of our own eyes seeking love. This week let's sacrifice our own good to go out of our way to remind people that they are loved. If we can't find Christ in our neighbors I'm afraid we might have trouble finding Him anywhere else.

Everyone deserves Love.

happiest week ahead to you and yours

thoughts on delayed gratification

There's obviously a whole lot I could write about this subject. Maybe about how our culture insists on immediate gratification, or how we can't live if we don't get what we want RIGHT. NOW. Obviously this is a huge problem for my generation and all the generations to come since everything we could ever want is at our fingertips. It's no wonder we find ourselves hopeless, wondering if this is it, and lost in an discontent world. It's such an oxymoron really, you'd think that by gratifying yourself you'd be happier. In the end, you did get what you wanted didn't you? Maybe you wanted that chocolate bar, the latest and greatest gadget, or maybe you wanted another person. Why do we still feel empty, sad.. .incomplete? Why didn't that thing that we thought would fill us up leave us wanting more? It's all the same, it's fleeting. Life is in the journey, not the destination.

On the flip side of the coin, delaying gratification can be a bad thing. This happens when we put off those big things that stay on our to do list. Currently, mine is an article that I've been dragging my feet to write, lesson plans for next week's classes, and mind-boggling website coding. The things we reeeeeallly just don't want to do. Things that bring us misery until they are done, but provide immediate relief once they are. Eventually we will get them done, but for now they will hang over our heads, tormenting our mental health and blemishing our neat and tidy "to do" list.  If only we just got it done, it couldn't harm us anymore.

So we do the things we want right now and leave the things we should do for later. We delay our gratification for difficult tasks, but fail to do so otherwise. Why do we have it so wrong?

As many people have said before me, tackling the big hard scary things and then delaying our rewards for later bring much more happiness. It completely baffles me how each and every one of us can be so blind. We don't realize the simplest things like the key to our own happiness and success. all the answers are out there clear as day, we just have to seek them, to trust them, to see with child-like eyes. every problem has it's answer, and I've found the more I focus on God the more clearly I can see. In the end, the things we long for and the things we delay gratification for (or don't delay for) are only things. We can't seek salvation in a cookie. The cookie is only there for our immediate enjoyment. When we put disproportionate honor into small things, these small things can take over our lives and control us. Yes, change is hard, but it's not impossible. Sure that cookie is delicious and might fill you up for an hour or two, but the "cookie" you envied the adults for receiving in mass as a child fills you up for all of eternity. 

Summer of Learning

Now that life keeps blazing on at it's usual pace I've found myself settling back into the swing of things. It took a little while for sure. The first week back, I would try to accomplish a task, but instead I would find myself falling asleep. I blame this temporary narcolepsy on my post-study abroad hangover but mostly on my jetlag (because that's a more legitimate excuse for when I hadn't done the dishes like my mother asked.)

This summer I'm teaching art and architecture to kiddos here in Baton Rouge at a place called 7 elements. This is only my first week, but I can already tell that I'm going to love it. This week I've been teaching architecture to teens and kids, and I can honestly say that each day already feels rewarding. These first few days have taught me that it's challenging to teach 7 year olds about architecture, but I'm not going to lie its always entertaining. The first day I asked them to tell me (in their own words of course) what they thought architecture was. One precious little boy raised his hand and yelled "It's like arc's textures like different textures of things like arcs". .... close, right? Then after I explained to them the difference between plans and elevation drawings, I asked them to draw plans of their "dream house". One of my students drew her father sitting in the bathroom on the toilet checking facebook on his ipad. I nearly fell over trying to hold in my laughter when she explained her drawing to me. They truly melt my heart, they are so precious and mostly unaffected by the world. 

 7 yr. old Olivia's Floorplan with her dad on the toilet

The constant jabbering about instagram, Demi Lovato, and the latest gossip reminds me that my other older group is blazing forward through their preteen years. I decided that preteens are a thermometer for the condition of the world. Their innocence is usually in it's first exposure to the inevitable corruption of humanity. Even though most of them are only 8-10 years younger than me, I find their conversations and interests so different from when I was that age. There is such a huge generational gap between even me and my own brother that's only 7 years younger than me, I can't imagine how different the world will be when Ella comes around.. she's 15 years younger than me. I'm grateful for my own parents and teachers (as well as all other people teaching kids out there-- you go glen coco). They are fighting the hardest battle: to keep children's minds pure, open, and not corrupted by the world. So much of what the world offers is empty and sad. The young children see their lives so clearly, so unaffected. Nothing is unnecessarily over-complicated to them. If only we as adults (or as almost-adults..) could tap into that ability, tap into those eyes that see such beauty and pure joy. Maybe if we had those eyes, we could see how the love that the world offers is empty and flawed. Maybe some of these kids will teach me more than I could teach them. At least in the preteen class I will be more educated on social media...did you know that there's such a thing as a group text fight these days?!?!? (how did I become a geezer already... )

After only a few days at this whole teaching thing I can tell it's going to be an adventure, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this summer. Yes, it'll be a challenging and busy one, but that's what an adventure's all about anyway: challenging ourselves. So here we go, let's do this.

*all pictures courtesy of 7 Elements Baton Rouge

Study abroad hangover // benefits of travel

"How was your semester abroad?!" 

I love/dread being asked this question. On one hand I'm more than thrilled to talk about the best semester of my entire life, yet on the other I feel discouraged. How am I supposed to fit a whole semester of experiences into one or two sentences? And even if I had a whole day to explain everything, every person's experience is only valuable as he or she experiences them, so sometimes I'm left feeling misunderstood and frustrated. It's true of most scenarios, plus people are simply trying to make conversation when they ask these questions. I decided if I could sit down and give a satisfactory answer of how my semester abroad was, I would answer by rambling on about how it made me a better person. In reality, it did. It helped me realize the person I was at that point in my life, where I wanted to be, and how I needed to get there. I feel ALIVE. I feel more childlike. More consumed by beautiful things. More affected by wonder. More connected to the universe and its creator. (ok ok I know I'm a double cheeseburger but bear with me for some more words)

I think I have a study abroad hangover. I'm already planning on my next travels, as I see it to be the only cure. I've gotten only a taste of the world, and I'm more than grateful for that taste, but I'm craving to see more of it. Many people say that travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer. While my empty pockets might not support this statement, I agree enormously after spending this past semester studying architecture in Italy and traveling to 10 other countries along the way.  That being said, studying abroad gave me much more than I bargained for. It gave me new eyes, a new way of seeing things. I left the states for the first time ever back in January with what I thought was an open mind and a clear grip on the world we live in. I couldn’t have been blinder. In actuality my mind was only cracked open only a sliver and I had no idea just how big and wide and deep the world could be. I thought I was big and important, yet we as individuals are so small in comparison to the world around us.  

For me, traveling abroad was like hitting a “reset” button. Every new place I went pushed me out of my comfort zone. When we live our daily lives it’s easy to fall into the routine of just getting by, but when we are forced out of our comfort zones, life has a way of making us grow more into the role we were created for. You truly begin to see, not just look. Travel, exploration, experiencing is necessary to our own growth. We are forced to us ask new questions and answer old ones. Everyplace around the world contains its own people that practice their own traditions and carry out their own way of life. Each group has their own questions and their own answers. Each place is a small puzzle piece fitting together to literally make up the mass of the world, but to also make up the soul of the world. When we experience these places, we have the opportunity to piece together this puzzle of humanity. Not only do we develop our own selves, we also contribute to the world when we take our new ways of seeing to our own homes and any other place we go.

 studying abroad granted me a newfound sense of adventure and independence. It reinforced the skills I gained when I walked out of my parents’ arms and made my first steps onto Clemson’s campus as a freshman just three short years ago (wait wut). I remember my high school self being just as intimidated by college as I was by any European form of public transportation in January. Living in a new place allowed me to live in the moment more, relying on my own devices and trusting in God. Without independence, one couldn’t survive a few days, much less a whole semester in a foreign country. If you kept up with my other blog you know that I learned this really quickly when a group of us decided to go skiing in the Alps. After skiing across the border from Italy into Switzerland, I somehow got separated from my friends. I frantically searched around and began to panic. Where were my friends? Why did I lose them? How would I get home? After searching with no sight of anyone I knew I had two options: cry or keep skiing. Maybe I did a little of both, but in the end I decided to keep skiing. As I raced down the mountain (by race I mean slowly skied with extra caution) I had this moment of self-empowerment where I threw up my ski poles and let out a loud squeal. No doubt the people around me thought I had lost it, and maybe I had, but it was in that moment that I felt completely independent. If I could do this, what I had thought to be impossible only moments earlier, what else could I accomplish in my life?

Not only did I gain more independence, studying abroad taught me to give up the illusion of control and recognize the important things in life. Missing a train, miscommunicating in a foreign language, or misreading directions are all times that lead to these realizations. In the grand scheme of things, these moments of inconvenience are only that -- inconveniences and not the end of the world. After a while I began to realize that there is little that I could control in my life in a foreign country, and often in life as a whole. We can only control our reaction to circumstances. As a result, missing a train or misunderstanding directions became adventures in disguise rather than huge obstacles to throw off my day. Just the same, living and traveling in another country taught me to realize the important things in life. Some things that seem like a big deal are in actuality very insignificant. 

Besides being students of architecture, studying abroad made us students of life. To say that this past semester was the best of my entire educational career is an understatement. These experiences will stay with me always, and I am immensely grateful for the opportunities. traveling brought new eyes, new perspectives, independence, and a realization of what’s important into my life. Then again, these opportunities are there for the taking every day no matter where we are, we just have to remember to take them. 

Being back has been good. I'm still adjusting to living at home again, but I'm beginning to think this summer is also just an adventure in disguise. We shall see. 

Happy Tuesday, dearest readers!

AND we're back

Greetings friends!

After blogging all semester long for my semester abroad (click there to go to that blog), I came to the realization that I want to try to blog like I used to.. i love to write, and if you're here I hope you like to read. If not, i'll try to post a lot of pictures too.... 

Check out the new and updated "about adventure letters" section and the new header for the blog. fingers crossed that this means good things for this little piece of internet