Merry Christmas

My first Christmas as a married woman in my own house. Needless to say, there have been a lot of Christmas lights, hot chocolate, and some coordinating ornaments involved. Oh, and unusually large stocking stuffers.

Merry Christmas from us to you! 

Quality Solutions to Life's Problems

Me: My professor called me Madeline six times in class today. I thought she would correct herself or realize her mistake, but no! She kept calling me Madeline. Should I say something to her or is that just making it more dramatic than it needs to be?
My dad: What's this professor's name?
Me: Prof. Peacock
My dad: Well, next time you talk to her, call her Professor Pigeon!

Pleased

I really don't want this post to sound like I'm gloating or basking in the glory of myself. Rather, I feel like I've worked hard this past semester, and I've enjoyed the challenges it's presented. I really feel that the Lord has strengthened me throughout these past few months and helped me achieve my academic and work-related goals. So I'm incredibly pleased and thankful and humbled by the experiences I've had.
And because I'm so happy and pleased with my work, which would have not turned out so well without a caring Father in Heaven, I just want to share some things I'm particularly pleased with.

--I wrote three papers this semester that I absolutely loved. One of them was about Berthe Morisot and how she balanced the maternal and political aspects of her life. Another was about images of working women in the 1950s. And finally, the last one was about Maria Janitschek's short story "In Weiss." This last paper was my absolute favorite. I poured my heart and soul into it and tackled a topic that is not easy but nonetheless one I'm passionate about.
--My professor told me to submit my Janitschek paper to the Sophie Journal, and I'm totally going to do this. (It's an online publication run by BYU's German department that accepts papers from students.)
--I made an unlikely friend-ish. He's a student in the class I work in as a TA. At the beginning of the semester he was having trouble grasping the material, so we set up a weekly appointment to review class material and answer any questions that he had. At first, I thought he would be difficult to work with and constantly complaining about having to take this class. He made it quite obvious he didn't want to. But I've learned that some people just need another person to listen to them, and sometimes that's all you need to do to serve another person. I'm grateful that he's proven to be friendly and easy to work with.
--I submitted a paper for my Northern Baroque class, and my professor encouraged me to pursue the topic for a senior thesis. I'm not sure if I will, but I'm considering it. I'm mostly grateful for the direction and possibility it gives me. I've been dreading picking a topic for my senior thesis, but now I at least have an option endorsed by one of the professors.
 --I like to think that I have been able to help several of the students in my class. (I call it "my" class, but really it's Professor Peacock's, and I'm just her lowly TA.) Helping people is a really fantastic thing to do, and it makes me happy.
--I have gained greater confidence with regards to my conversational skills. Seriously, they used to be so bad. But now I'm able to sustain a conversation for more than two minutes. Quality improvement, folks. I still have a long way to go, but it's going.
--I had three papers due in a matter of two weeks and midterms to grade on top of that (midterms consume 20 hours of my week, by the way). But I planned ahead, and was able to not write any of those papers the night before. I'm gaining a greater testimony with regards to planning ahead. It's really phenomenal.

So I'm pretty much done. This semester was busy but happy, and I think I'm allowed to be content with the way I handled certain situations.
Confidence, folks. Can you feel it grow and blossom inside of you? Wonderful, isn't it? Choosing to be confident and letting it show. (But hopefully it never turns into arrogance.)

Temporizing and Modernist Architecture

Last week, I anticipated this week being crazy busy. Two major research papers, one minor paper, and 32 midterms to grade. So I went ahead and cranked out my two major papers that were due this week. It's really cleared up my schedule. Either that or I've already written them, and now it takes a huge amount of self motivation to go back and read through them to edit and organize them, and I just don't want to. It takes so much to get me to edit one of my own papers. It's a weird thing; I love editing papers that aren't mine, but I hate rereading what I've written. Unless it's been months or years, then I don't mind.

So, in an effort to temporize even more, I thought I would blog about something we discussed in Modern Art today. We were talking about the Bauhaus and the new aesthetic--that sleek, reduced aesthetic that consists of basic shapes and form stripped to the bare minimum. I love this modernist architecture. It's just so clean to me and reduced; it's simplicity at its greatest refinement, and I yearn to live in a house like that.

German Pavilion, built for the 1929 Barcelona World Fair

My professor asked who would like to live in this house, and the majority raised their hand. He then asked those who didn't raise their hand why they wouldn't want to live in a place like this. The answers were varied. It didn't seem practical, what was its use, it's an empty monument to modernist architecture, etc. And my professor agreed with them to an extent, claiming that there was no storage space in a place like this and that its practicality was questionable. 

But I disagree with them on so many levels. 

Yes, the Bauhaus sought to integrate art with technology to establish a new machine aesthetic. But to me, I see it somewhat differently. It's simple and reduced, the way I want my life to be. Sometimes there seems to be such a push to have and have and have the latest and greatest or just the accoutrements that accompany a typical, material life. But I don't want that. I want reduction, I want simplicity, I want the bare minimum. Who needs storage space when all you have is what you absolutely need? Why wouldn't this seem practical? Taking your life and stripping it to just the furniture and accessories that you need to function is to me extremely practical.  

I get so drowned by this push to have little sculptures or decorative asides in my house. I see these magazine with amazing color schemes and colorful pillows that adorn a couch with paintings on the wall and vases and figurines and lamps and decorative books (which I have a problem with to begin with, but that's another story), and it's all so beautiful. But at the same time, it's all so much. Who needs those vases and figurines; why not have one or two pillows instead of six? And above all, read those books. Don't use them to achieve greater aestheticism in your living room. 

I am definitely guilty of this myself. I don't pretend otherwise. I have vases and glass bottles in my home; stacks of books, paintings on my wall, and piles of paper. But I want greater simplicity in my life. With all of its hustle and bustle and constant push to keep busy, I want a place free of clutter, commotion, and chaos, a sleek and calm reprieve. And to me, this is the ultimate functionality of the home I wish to have. 

I stand by my desire to live in a place similar to the German Pavilion.  

I just want to put this out there:

Does anyone else think it's weird that people take selfies/any sort of picture at all in bathrooms?

I don't know about you, but a camera is the last thing I want near a bathroom. For multiple reasons.

I just think it's weird.*

*The opinions expressed in this blogpost are solely those of the writer herself, and she thinks it's just plain weird. 

My Kind of Feminism

“It is too easy to allow traditional definitions of power to diminish women’s achievements as they have similarly limited women’s opportunities.”

“That women often play different roles at different stages of their lives is one fact I hope this book illumines.”

“We have wrongly measured women’s productivity in the world by male stages of life.”

"That women must keep on responding to the same problems involving their either/or roles as mothers and workers at different times, in different imaginative ways, must become an accepted reality until institutions change. What we have to understand more adequately are the many ways women have of asserting their own values when they are not included in traditional power structures, and how they often attempt to change things when they are."

Eugenia Kaledin, Mothers and More

There are some nights....

...where I find it near impossible to do homework. Granted, these nights do not come all that often. But they sometimes come.

Tonight is one of those nights.

In other news, I found this little gem browsing through my pictures on my computer today.

This is just so true for me. 

I actually found several gems browsing through my old images. I'll have to do a blog post titled "My College Career as Seen from the Pictures Downloaded on my Computer." 

Or something. It's a working title. 

Future Plans

Nathan and I are retiring in the Schwarzwald, on the Bodensee. To those who claim that's geographically impossible, I say: challenge accepted.

Also, I'm buying all of Gesina Ter Borch's illustrations from the Rijskmuseum. There's this little tiny piece of me that wishes they would at some point be forced to sell them so I could snatch them up. But of course I would never really want the Rijksmuseum to be in financial distress (nor is it likely that they will ever be in financial distress). Unless it meant I could snag me some Gesina drawings, then I'd support that.

I started training for a triathlon today! I'm looking to do some next semester/summer, and I'm pretty stoked. I've always wanted to do one, so I'm carpe-ing the diem and doing it. I convinced Nathan to train with me. He's so motivational and driven, it's great for getting me to do things.

My life is a mixture of fantasy and reality, but whose isn't?

I should not be awake past 11:30

I'm staying up late tonight to register for classes.
I should probably be up until midnight every night doing research, but alas, it is so difficult for me to function on such little sleep. You would think I could make an exception since I have a rough draft due next week, and I do not know what my thesis is yet. Naturally I would stay up late every night searching and searching to come up with something. Nope.

I just realized that if I had not chosen to double major, or even minor, in German, I could be done with my art history degree next semester. After three years of college, I would have a degree. Needless to say, my mind is blown. I literally only have eight classes left to take for my undergraduate degrees. This is so weird, and it's not even my last semester yet.

But the end is in sight; I can glimpse the proverbial flickering light at the end of the tunnel.

And I just want to sleep. Why must I pick classes at midnight.

Epiphany

I had an epiphany this morning about why I love art history.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately, trying to discover what it is that I find so fascinating about it, and it dawned on me this morning: There's more than meets the eye.

John Constable once said "We see nothing until we truly understand it."

I think this statement is true on so many levels. We do not see people, places, cultures, or paintings until we truly understand them. We can get the gist, we can glance and skim; but to fully appreciate all the beauty that is there before you, you must seek to understand, you must put forth an effort to see beyond the surface. And I love that this profound truth is the same with people, not just works of art. I love forging that path to understanding and seeing people, cultures, languages, and works of art in a genuine sense. So this is why I study art history: I want to see the world around me in all its glory and bask in the wonderful complexity that is simply life.

Once upon a time...

...there was a boy named Nathan.

Who met a girl named Emaline.

They were in the same FHE group. After some eyebrow raising and face-making at each other from a safe distance, they finally started talking to each other. They discovered right away their mutual love of Nacho Libre, puns, the Lord, ice cream, and finally--each other.

They got married.

And some might say, that they lived happily ever after.
But that's not always quite accurate.
Sometimes it's happily, sometimes it's not so happily. Sometimes it's beyond happily and sometimes it's anything but happily.
I like to think that they lived togetherly ever after.
Hand in hand.
Step by step.
Because that's what marriage is: tag teaming life with your best friend.

Guys.

My heart belongs with the Dutch artists during the seventeenth century.

Truly.

"I'm happy as a duck in the world's biggest pond with you." --Nathan, to me

October

It's that time of year again, folks: October.

This is my favorite month. The fact that it coincides with my birthday only plays a minimal part, I promise.

October is full of apples and pumpkins and all sorts of yummy squashes.
The leaves change color, and the world is bathed in a splendor of browns, reds, yellows, oranges, and purples.
Fall fashion is simply wonderful and classy.
All sorts of recipes emerge that are made with pumpkin! Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread...there's just so much, and I want to make it all.
The weather: it's moderate, and there's this smell in the air that lets you breathe in autumn.
Sometimes people remember me, because my birthday happens mid-month. That's always nice!

So that's why.

Nephews

I'm an Auntie Em! And I love it.

Why?

Their names: Oliver and Lyall. Charming, old-fashioned, and quaint. Just so perfect.
Because babies are cute and chubby, and I love it when they make concerned faces full of curiosity.
I get to snuggle with them, hold them when they cry, and they sometimes fall asleep in my arms. That last part is my absolute favorite.
I get to make funny faces at them, and they just stare at me in a nonjugdmental way.
And the best part: I get to spend time with them, and at the end of the day, their parents take them home. I love babies, but goodness they are exhausting. I think for now I'm content with taking them in small doses.

When I was a little girl...

I watched Little Women and dreamt of naming my future daughter Josephine. "Oh! what a lovely name," I would think to myself.

I wanted to be a cashier. As I put away the groceries at home, I would pretend to ring up each item.

I couldn't wait to grow up. I wanted to wear make-up, shave my legs, wear high heels and long fancy dresses to parties where we would poke our little pinkies out while we drank tea and ate little cookies. As I sat in Sunday school, I would pull out a little mirror and apply my plastic tube of lipstick.

I thought the noblest thing was to be a fireman.

I wanted to be a horse trainer. I dreamed of horses day in and day out. I read about them, I collected the figurines. I yearned for the day I would own a Bashkir Curly or a Lipizzaner.

I read The Land by Mildred Taylor and cried. A half-black child was whipped, and the whole situation was so unjust, it really affected me.

I was obsessed with "go-together" outfits and being independent. In many ways, that last part has not changed at all.

I was constantly living in a world that was not my own. I wanted to play restaurant and be the waitress. I played "house" with my sisters and declared myself as the mom, the person in charge who got to boss everyone else around. I played with my dolls and Barbies, creating another world full of homemaking that I would submerse myself into. I read books and longed to go back in time.

My hero was Harriet Tubman.

And the best part about it all? My mother indulged me.

When I wanted to play restaurant, she would tell me what was on the menu for dinner or lunch that day and send me into the dining room with my note-pad and pencil to take orders. (Once, after serving my father and brothers lunch, my dad tipped me with a stack of quarters, and I was elated.) When I wanted to be a dog, she would place a bowl with water on the ground and let me enjoy my world of make-believe. When I wanted to plan a party, whether it was a birthday party or an end-of-school party, she let me. When I stubbornly refused to let my mother pick out my outfits or do my hair, she shrugged her shoulders (albeit after many attempts to convince me otherwise) and let me be. When I wanted to play dress-up, she gave me access to her high heels. When I wanted to curl my hair, she would tie my hair up in rags the night before, untie them in the morning, then arrange the mess of curls in a neat manner. She encouraged my love of books and contemplation. She watched Little Women and Pride and Prejudice with me, and we bonded.
She loved me throughout all my stubbornness, awkwardness, crazy plans, independence, and even those inexplicable teenage years, and she's never stopped.

"Oh the comfort ... The inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with another person. Having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together. Certain that a faithful hand will take and sift; keep what is worth keeping and, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."


A line of poetry as quoted to me by my mother. 

I absolutely love it. 

On my way to class

Nathan insists on walking me to school every morning. And we usually have adventures.

Class doesn't start until nine, but we take the 8:07 train. This means that we have some time to kill. I love the city at this time of day. It is quiet and still and so peaceful as the city wakes up.

We come out of the Hauptbahnhof and walk along Europastraße for a bit. Then we take a left onto Wilhelmstraße and we go over the Neckar bridge and look down at the water, seeing the reflection of the city. We walk past as the city workers are watering the flowers along the bridge rails and the ones that hang from the lampposts. We continue along, cross the street, and stop at a bakery. 

Most of the time we wake up and rush to catch the train and hardly have any time to eat breakfast. We might kinda sorta do this on purpose. It gives us a reason to walk into a German bakery and admire the diversity of breads and pastries that are laid out before us. I just want to go in there and stare at it all. It blows my mind how the Germans have evolved bread into an art form, and I want to taste it all. So we buy a Nusschenk, a Kirschtöpfle, my favorite, or something covered in bacon and melted cheese and wander into the Altstadt. 

We wind through the Altstadt, looking at the quaint architecture of the homes and businesses. We look in store windows, we admire, we muse, we sigh, and move on. We go up the hill and as we near the top, the faint sound of organ music can be heard from the church. And we go into the very center of the city, the Holz Markt, and the fruit, meat, and vegetable vendors are all there, selling some of the region's best with regards to homemade. 

By this time the Kirschtöpfle is gone, and we make our way over to the Brechtbau. Nathan hugs me good-bye, and I go to class. 

The train, the bakery, the organ music coming from the old church, the German architecture, the cobble-stone streets...this I will all miss when we go home. 

I dream of you. 

Update

I'm really quite bad at updating my blog more frequently. I just forget about it until I read someone else's blog, and I think, "I should be a better blogger like them."

This is what happened just now, on the blog of someone who I don't really speak to in real life, but I follow them on the interweb. Such is my life of social encounters cushioned by the silence of the internet.

Perhaps an update is in order.

This summer has been quite eventful! I went to Tennessee, Michigan, New Jersey (the airport was quite big!), and now Germany. For three months, Nathan and I were separated due to my work in Tennessee and his research internship at the University of Michigan. Oh the sacrifices we make for the future. I can summarize the long distance in two words: it sucked. It was quite an interesting summer. I learned what it means to be a boss, what my managing style looks like, became really good friends with my sister Leah, put together two binders worth of paperwork for an ACA Accreditation visit, and drove a tractor for the first time. In the meantime, Nathan was being super academic researching methylase and taking a GRE prep course.

So we met up in Tennessee after those three awful months and flew to Germany. It was a long day of traveling. We got to Germany at 8 AM in the morning, exhausted from our travels, but unable to sleep if we wanted to adjust to the time here. After three days we finally got adjusted. We usually go to bed around 9:30 or 10, so basically I'm on my dream sleep schedule. I'm speaking a ton of German, and I'm getting used to it/getting better. I used to be extremely shy about speaking German and would even refuse to speak in my German classes. I'm getting over that out of pure necessity. The other students in my program are from Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Brazil, Taiwan, Japan, China, Kyrgyzstan, and so many other places. It's actually a really cool experience. Meanwhile, Nathan gets to be a "housewife." He cleans and shops for groceries and sometimes even cooks. It's so nice coming home with the bed made. He's learned some German, and he can now order food and gelato. Two very important things. We've visited so far one castle, the Schwarzwald, Freiburg, and explored alllll of Tübingen. Such a cute, quaint city.

So anyway. Here we are in Germany, and all we can talk about is how we miss our home in Provo. I'm excited for the semester to start.

Confession

Sometimes, I enjoy feeling sad, melancholic, or nostalgic.

I think these instances allow me to feel the complexity of human emotion, its depth and intricacy, its possibilities and strong influence.

Besides, one can't appreciate sunny weather if it didn't rain every now and then. Enjoy the rain while it lasts, ya know.

In Love with German Printmaking

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Holy Family, 1500

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Old Bulldog Scratching Himself,1485

Albrecht Durer, Self-Portrait at 13, 1484

Martin Schongauer, Nativity, 1470

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Christ Bearing the Cross, 1480-90

Albrecht Durer, St. Jerome in his Study, 1514

I gotta get this out of my head

In my life, there are a number of friendly-type of relationships that have diminished. My relationships with certain people are not what they once used to be. Close friends have become distant acquaintances, and I feel trapped when I'm around them. None of the ease that should accompany a true friendship.

I'm trapped by memories, haunted by echoes of something I once had but have now lost. And I am not sure how to get this back.

Even if I do "succeed," there exists this shell, a remnant of a connection that no longer exists that I've outgrown. A hollow and empty form that reminds me of what things once were. And I can't seem to overcome it. Things never seem to be the same, and I don't seem to quite succeed.

It's discouraging. It also makes me sad.

But I want to try to make amends. That counts for something, right?

In the instances where I have made amends, I feel hopeful but also unfulfilled at the same time. I yearn for the friendship that was once there. I want to permanently erase deeds and words from memory or any tangible evidence, blurt out apologies for my mistakes, and tell these people what I desire. I was never one for expressing my feelings to such an extent.

I find myself longing for friendship, and I can't seem to shake it off. But nor can I seem to succeed. Whether I attempt to amend a lost friendship or try to start a new one, I never feel like I get very far.

Maybe I should just try being a better friend to the ones that I already have. I can direct the path of my future.

Sorry for the rather introspective thoughts lately. I don't mean to be a downer, but I don't want to simply forget some realizations I've had lately.

Holding Back

I'm beginning to notice that there are certain times when I just need to hold back.

Sometimes it's hard for me to not be everyone's mother, especially when I care about a person.

But there are times when I feel like I don't know what to say. I want to express an urgency to keep going, I want to express my incredulity at their actions, I want to point out future ramifications of actions. But I just don't know how to say this without being rude or unnecessarily bossy. And it just isn't my place.

So I hold back, and hope that things get done. Hope is confidence, right? A confidence in things not seen but are true. A bit like faith.

Forgetting

I think the ability to consciously and willfully forget is an aspect of God.

I'm no genius, but I have a pretty good memory. When people talk, I listen, and when I listen, I internalize. Words and images are easily impressed upon my mind.

Sometimes my ability to remember things can be rather harmful to myself and my relationships with others. I don't mean to, but I hold onto people's words, and they sometimes resurface in my brain. Even when I thought I was over something or I had already let something go, shells of said words return to me, and I discover that they still slightly sting.

And I just want to forget. That would facilitate so much in my life, make many hurt or bitter feelings easier to overcome.

I never want to be the kind of person that brings up past words or deeds as justification for my actions. I never want to be that kind of wife, especially, who tells her husband that "you did this which affected me in this way, and now I'm doing this thing, so why can't you just be whatever?" Obviously that was a really vague example, but I think it could be pretty easy to fill in those blanks with specific actions or words.

Hence, my conclusion: it is an attribute of God to simply and consciously forget when we as humans err.
Oh, to be like God!

Regrets

I've been thinking a lot about regrets lately, mostly the ones I have from my teenage years. I try to justify some of my actions by saying I was a teenager with weird, unbalanced hormone levels, and I'm a very different person now, but I struggle to understand my motivation for some of the things I did.

I ran into someone on campus the other day that sparked this train of thought. When I first saw them, it didn't register for a split second, then I barely had time to say "hey" as I walked passed them. All of the sudden I was overwhelmed with this desire to contact this person and profusely apologize. I wouldn't necessarily be asking for their forgiveness, but rather their understanding. I just wanted to say, and still want to say, sorry, sorry for being mean, sorry for not being a better friend when I really should have been. I just want this person to know that I regret so much what happened with our friendship and the way it ended, mainly because of my fault.  

I want my life to be lived without regrets. I hate feeling like this, it haunts me. I want to treat others the way I want to be treated, the way others simply deserve to be treated. And I want to be happy, but feeling like this prevents me from being happy. So, I think I'm going to write this person a letter and send it to them in the mail. I hope they open it. Even if they don't, at least I sent it.

It's been...a long time.

Oh hey.
I promise I haven't forgotten about you. Blogger looks so different. It's just that this past semester has been hectic and crazy and this upcoming one will be more hectic and crazier. Fun stuff.

I suppose I should just mention that I am married...yeah. I really enjoy it. I think that of all the facets and nuances of my relationship with Nathan, the one I treasure the most is our friendship. We can have the most ridiculous conversations and come up with outlandish scenarios, and it's just so fun. It's liberating to be with someone that loves you for who you are, and you don't have to worry about saying the wrong vs. the right thing or what they think about you, and all those other issues I have when conversing with people. He listens to me, I listen to him, and we talk about anything and everything. I never imagined myself married at only twenty, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I am really grateful he's in my life and that I have the chance to experience life with him. I think that's another thing I love about our relationship--when he is there for the cherished, sad, awkward, hilarious moments. It's extremely fulfilling to be with someone who wants to and enjoys sharing life with you, someone who's committed to sharing all of life's difficulties and happy times. This is mostly what I look forward to. That and graduating from graduate school.