invictus

"I felt an even more fundamental shift, almost like I had felt that I was a boat on an ocean, rocky and choppy with waves, and I had this feeling that I'm not the boat, I'm the ocean...It has made me feel...powerful."

-Sarah Gray (from this podcast, which seriously, you should listen to)

I'm not the boat, I'm the ocean. A new mantra, maybe?

life is sad and beautiful

A neurosurgeon dying of cancer, to his less than a year old daughter:

"When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing."

read the rest here

some words i found online that i liked

"We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, 'You can be anything,' and we heard, 'You have to be everything.'"

via

That last line, man. I like it.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

- Kahlil Gibran, snippet of "On Children"

(I can't remember where I found this, but I feel like it was a great blog post somewhere.)

pretty words for your sunday

via

"Within"

By Carol Lynn Pearson 

I read a map once
Saying the kingdom of God
Was within me.
But I never trusted
Such unlikely ground.

I went out.
I scoured schools
And libraries
And chapels and temples
And other people’s eyes
And the skies and the rocks.
And I found treasures
From the kingdom’s treasury
But not the kingdom.

Finally I came in quiet
For a rest
And turned on the light.

And there
Just like a surprise party
Was all the smiling royalty–
King, Queen, court.

People have been
Locked up for less, I know.
But I tell you
Something marvelous
Is bordered by this skin:

I am a castle
And the kingdom of God
Is within.

(found here)

don't work. be hated. love someone.

I have a feeling that in a couple years anyone who posts a status update about graduating will really get on my nerves. (I am not graduating until at least 2016. Let that sink in.) But since I'm still a bright-eyed and naive first year grad student, I'm happy for you!* In fact, I'm even linking to this convocation talk that's been all over my facebook today:

"What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.
....
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it."

The first paragraph resonates a little too true, and the second is just pretty. 

Congrats grads!

*I am not happy for everyone who keeps saying they are done with finals because mine don't finish until May 3rd. My happiness for others' successes only goes so far.

mme curie says it best

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” 


-Marie Curie 
(my favorite female scientist, and yes, I've seen the xkcd cartoon, and she's still my favorite :P)


via

He is risen!

Aaron posted this to his facebook today, and I thought I would steal it:

“We laugh, we cry, we work, we play, we love, we live. And then we die. …
And dead we would remain but for one Man and His mission, even Jesus of Nazareth. …
He it was who died on the cross to atone for our sins. He became the firstfruits of the Resurrection. Because He died, all shall live again.”

-President Thomas S. Monson


Where I would be without the knowledge of Christ's resurrection and life after death, I don't want to know. What a precious gift it is to know that truth!

sometimes i ruin a great shakespeare quote by throwing a crazy youtube video in at the end.

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.


-Shakespeare
(found in the book Genome by Matt Ridley)

A good thought after coming home from a fairly intimidating fellowship workshop. That Shakespeare, he was pretty good, huh?

As good as Dr. Seuss though?!

Go do something fun for your weekend.
Me and Aaron, we will read about science or something. And hunker down for HURRICANE IRENE! First an earthquake, now this?! Natural disasters abound! Welcome to Philadelphia!

it is all matter

"There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter."

Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8

What a cool set of verses! All I know is, there is some rad chemistry going on there, and when I die, I'm going to ask God all about it.

we're cute.

I found this post forever ago (January) on C. Jane's blog, but forgot about it until this week's Relief Society lesson (mentioned using the internet as a way to share the Gospel).


"I think we've established that. We're cute. Blogging Mormon Housewives are cute. Ok. [...]

It's that we're more than cute. Or at least we should be. And why aren't we? Why didn't Emily end the article saying, "I am going to invite the missionaries over for hot cocoa"? Not that I want Emily to be a Mormon necessarily, but in truth, I want Emily to want to know what she was asking in the first place, Why are these blogs so fascinating?

And I don't think we've answered that question.

I think we're getting close. When I first started blogging (cue: my maternal grandbloggers voice) there wasn't a lot of religion talk in the Mormon blogs I read. Then we started to get more courageous, we started to put up buttons and link to texts (talks, articles) and sometimes we share stories about church or the goodness of God--posts that were easy on the spiritual digestion. We've come a long way in being able to proclaim our Latter Day Sainthood and it's good. But what about the doctrine? Are we sharing the meat along with the cupcakes?

Not just religion for religion’s sake, but WHY it works; why we go to church for three hours every Sunday (just to wrestle our kids for most of it) why we go on missions, why we love our temples, why we believe in families….WHY IT HELPS."

Interesting, interesting.  What do you guys think?

To read the whole post, click here. (you have to scroll down a little bit)

the third and final continent

"While astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

I love this quote. Somehow I feels like it fits with the end of the semester and being almost done (in June) with college. Me graduating with a chemistry is quite ordinary, but I am bewildered by what all has gone into the past four years of my life. Sometimes it was sucky, sometimes it was awesome, but it was always worth it.

*Also, if you haven't read any of Jhumpa Lahiri's books, you absolutely need to. Unaccustomed Earth is also fantastic. I have yet to find any other writer who can describe everyday, normal life in such a beautiful way. Love love love her. (And she's a Pulitzer Prize winner, so I'm not the only one who does!)

thought of the day:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5

delicious imagery for your monday evening

"There is nothing that exists separate from me, Arjuna. The entire universe is suspended from me as my necklace of jewels. Arjuna, I am the taste of pure water and the radiance of the sun and moon. I am the sacred word and the sound heard in air, and the courage of human beings. I am the sweet fragrance in the earth and the radiance of fire; I am the life in every creature and the striving of the spiritual aspirant."

-The Bhagavad Gita

(thank you very much Philosophy 210)

il faut avancer

One eternal afternoon* later, and I was home.

I'm torn. I am so, so glad to be home. I'm so happy to be back with Aaron. And I am so happy to start throwing myself into rehearsals and working in the lab and planning my school schedule and figuring out my life and everything else.

But I miss France. I miss hearing French everywhere and reading signs in French. I miss saying "Bonjour!" and "Au revoir!" when I enter and exit stores, elevators, buses. I miss eating jambon/emmental/beurre baguette sandwiches. I miss walking around the centre ville. I miss the metro. I miss the Mediterranean Sea. I miss weekend train trips. I miss the taste of French on my tongue and pastries in my mouth.

To everything there is a season I guess. My season in France is over. Must keep pedaling the bicycle forward or I shall lose my balance, a la Einstein:

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."

Keep moving keep moving keep moving.
Can't help it; mostly I just want to sleep.

*okay, 11 hours if we're going to not exaggerate.

and we stood at God's feet, equal-as we are!

"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."


-Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre


I've been re-reading Jane Eyre lately, and my goodness, there are so many awesome quotes in this thing. Kudos to Miss Bronte for crafting such an awesome heroine. Probably Jane is my literary hero and Marie Curie still reigns as my actually lived hero (along with my mother, I should add). 


I can't even pick out a favorite line from this paragraph because I love how they all fit together. Ahh. So good.
I especially...appreciate? relate to? it now as I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life. It seems almost akin to blasphemy to say I want more than "just" to be a mom, but...I do? I realize that is by far the most important and most fulfilling thing I could ever do with my life, but...I want to...go to grad school? Maybe? Ugh, I don't know. I'll probably start class in 30 days (wow, how are we already in August?) and swear I never want to be put through any more of this academic misery, but secretly I love it. Even when I'm in the Benson Building until far too late because it makes me feel like I'm doing something...important? 


Sometimes, I guess I'm just scared that when I don't have homework to do, experiments to run, or chapters to read I'll feel totally insignificant.
I suppose I should sort out my priorities.


Thoughts?

5 days...

All my bags are packed I'm ready to go
I'm standin' here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn
The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time let me kiss you
Close your eyes I'll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won't have to leave alone
About the times, I won't have to say

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go


What a perfect farewell song.The only differences are I know when I'll be back again (August 21st), and I do not hate to go. That being said, it is a tad bittersweet...
and that dang Gattacca quote fits so perfectly.

The end.

stolen words

Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp'd no more--
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

Jane Eyre speaks to my soul.

This is the third post I've written up tonight, because I cannot for the life of me decide what it is I'm trying to say.

"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"

Amen, amen, amen.
That is all.

cheshire cat

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Such an awesome quote. You go Alice.

secret blog buddies. go. click. read. thanks.

the night is darkest just before the dawn

My oscillation between despair and joy continues, as this afternoon I'm feeling significantly better about life.

461 homework is done (thank you thank you thank you Dave).
391 paper is...getting there...
French doesn't feel too daunting
and neither does lab.

So, what did we learn kiddies?
Katie should try harder not to freak out about school all the time.

I read Romans 8 last week, and I really like a lot of the verses in there:

18: For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.

26: Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

28: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

31: What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can prevail against us?

35: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
37: Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors though him that loved us.
38: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor pricipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39: Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

May I add "nor 391 papers, nor 461 homework, nor post lab quizzes, nor sleepless nights, nor feelings of inadequacy shall be able to separate us from the love of God"?

Everything will work out. Things will get better. The semester will end.
I have been so richly blessed. If school is all I have to worry about, life is not so bad.
It's just hard to remember that sometimes.