Today, to be honest, I am not in a writing mood, rather, I am in a I-just-want-to-sit-down-and-paint-for-hours-and-hours-but-I-have-things-to-do... mood. Such is life! I tend to fill my time and take advantage of opportunities for work and socialization and general getting involved, and I do love being busy in all of those things and am thankful for them, but I also forget that I might not necessarily need me-time, but I apparently need me-project-time! Perhaps tomorrow I will get my Witness for Peace writing done in apt time to sit down and pursue another art! There's a decent goal. And I'm thinking aloud, or rather writing semi-stream of consciousness, but I appreciate this outlet.

I also appreciate free spelt bread and sweet potatoes from my housemate who works at the co-op. She was able to bring home potatoes that did not look so great but are still very much in good shape, and spelt bread that was past when it should legally be on the shelf but is still perfectly good. I do not like to have special dietary needs because I do not like other people to go out of their way for me, and since I figured out I should just avoid wheat, I have not eaten bread in ages. But it was so wonderful to have a grass-fed hamburger on two slices of doughy bread today! I'm thankful for the food I have been given and how it has nourished my body and my soul.

I'm also thankful for a couple of sources of inspiration today. The Encouragement of the Day email in my inbox began with this verse: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13 (NIV). Kind of what I mentioned yesterday, no? Well-timed. The author went off of this verse and wrote, "The pain of our past makes it hard to believe God's promise of hope for our future. It's easy to lose confidence in God, in other people and especially in ourselves... I learned to trust and hope again, too. And I made a new vow — I promised myself and God that I would not allow the pain of my past to determine my future any more." We have all been hurt by people we consider acquaintances, friends, enemies, and love, but I keep going back to a pivotal message from a sermon at my home church a year back: "Let your vulnerabilities go. You might just get loved into being who you are meant to be."

No matter your scars and past hurts, may your eyes and judgment be discerning, but may your heart be open to love and hope and joy today and all days. 

Today I'm thankful for the delightful coincidence that most of my house wanted to make dinner at 7:30 pm. Normally none of us eat that late, and usually we all kind of do our own thing, but we all somehow ended up flowing in and out of the kitchen and around each other around the same time. And one of my housemates and her boyfriend just got back from their vacation, so that added even more bodies to the mix than are normally vying for counter and stove space, but it was just nice to have everyone around for at least a few minutes. For as much time as I spend with Carleton friends, and running around Northfield for work, errands, and volunteering, I do want to get to know my housemates too and I am thankful that somehow, we all came into this house not knowing each other but everyone is super nice! We are an eclectic crew but a solid bunch, and I hope we can continue to both respect each other as housemates and enjoy each other's company.

I'm thankful for the natural cue of the calluses coming off my fingertips that it has been too long since I have played guitar. So I did, and life is good!

And I'm thankful to always be learning. About others, about life, about God, about love.

That's all for today. I've also learned I must sleep! One can only overflow with joy and love if filled up to begin with. Until tomorrow, dearest readers!

Today I'm thankful to have started a new old part-time job to complement my Zumba work and my Witness for Peace work. My professor who I worked for since sophomore year of college and I am happy to also call a friend is back from a term off and we can jump back into some projects we had left off at the end of the summer. And because I as an alum can no longer be a student employee, I'm ever the more grateful that he still values our working relationship and wants to hire me very part-time but out of his own pocket.

I'm also thankful to add another part-time use of my skills to the mix since a friend's mom contacted me today about taking tennis lessons from me. I've been blessed to have been involved with this sport since I was little, that I could find work teaching tennis all through high school, and that if for whatever reason I cannot find work in my field, I have teaching tennis to fall back on. Plus, I love teaching private lessons. Akin to my reason for enjoying tutoring, it fills me with joy to work one-on-one with someone to improve their weaknesses, build on their strengths, and encourage them along the journey.

I'm thankful to be relatively on top of my Gmail inbox, a rare occurrence. And typically that would be an indicator of slacking off in other areas of my life, but somehow I have been getting done what needs to get done along the way. I perhaps have not gotten as much on my Cuba blog done as I would like, but I now have a self-imposed deadline that I want to devote all my energies to fulfilling!

And I'm thankful for an article a dear friend posted on Facebook that talks about the necessity of love in scientific terms. 10 things you might not know about love. Check it out! One of the phrases I love is "micro-moments of positivity resonance" - little positive connections with other human beings that we can frame ourselves to recognize. "Simply upgrading your view of love changes your capacity for it." Love is pure and purely amazing, and we all can live healthier, more peaceful, more content, more joyful lives when we notice all the little ways love twinkles in our lives even when we sometimes feel far from the sustained, ever-present God love that can just wrap you up in a hug. God may be greater than human understanding, but we can see the evidence of love all around us if we attune our vision to it.

Today, despite less sleep this weekend than I have been getting, I am just the right amount of rested and contentedly exhausted. I'm thankful for the invite from one of my new housemates to join her and her friends for Crispin and cooking dinner Friday night. It was so sweet of her to invite me, and it was nice to branch out from my usual rice and beans and salad to help the collective make swiss chard rollups and a carrots and rice dish. We all also bonded over dreams to travel more internationally and dark chocolate-covered espresso beans.

I'm thankful for a nice girls' late happy hour in the Cities with high school friends before another one of us left our hometown. I'm thankful for a lovely surprise of my friend making smoothies, eggs, and hash browns the morning after our sleepover. I'm thankful we can still have sleepovers as semi-legitimate adults.

I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to join my boss in representing Witness for Peace at a trade policy training put on by the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition on Saturday. It was helpful to think about how trade policy in fact connects to so many aspects of our lives, from job availability in our own communities, to mental health, to community dynamics, to the way we treat immigrants. We can all do more to be aware of the choices we make not only as consumers, but also the kind of fair trade policies that will promote good living standards and sustainable development of communities around the world rather than just racing to the cheapest way of producing and distributing a good or service. Policy-making is always complicated, but I would encourage you all to look into where the goods you are buying come from and think of your fellow brothers and sisters around the world, and also understand the repercussions of trying to have free trade when human beings are barred from freedom of mobility. It is an issue of justice, and it affects us all.

I'm thankful to debrief and catch up with my boss, as we both do our Witness for Peace work remotely and from home, so we cherish the rare occasions when we can actually talk and also connect with others in our network. I'm thankful for having carpooled to the Cities with my friend who also lives south of Minneapolis so we could have even more time to hang out in the car and treat ourselves to Cherry Berry frozen yogurt on the way back.

I'm thankful to have friends to go to the ridiculously silly Ebony dance performance back on campus that always reawakens my inspiration to dance. I'm thankful to spend time with another friend who I can always count on to just relax and be silly with, as we dashed off to investigate the newly completed Evans dorm renovations (it may have been done a few weeks ago.... and neither of us had been inside yet!), and then settled in to channel surf at my house over hot tea.

I'm thankful for the time and energy to attempt a gluten-free pie crust and use it for lime bars so I could knock out two foods in my stash that needed to be used, plus just to do a little late-night baking! And what a blessing it was to have that time to do that while I perhaps should have been sleeping, but as tennis is still near and dear to my heart, I was staying up to watch the Australian Open men's finals which happened to start at 3am here, so I cranked out some baked goods, some work, and some push-ups while watching a pretty solid match!

From my encampment in our well-windowed game room, I was thankful to not be the guy biking home in 10 degrees at 5am. I was also thankful that I had the luxury of sleeping in until 12:30 and did not have anything to accomplish immediately until I would teach my Zumba class in the afternoon with my solid cohort of middle-aged ladies. They are a joy to teach!

I was also blessed with another night of cooking with friends tonight, complete with fellowship and abundance. Abundance also accurately represents the amount of broomball I played tonight and the amount of fun I had. Today's strange weather left the rinks crystallized so one could actually run on the surface with a certain amount of traction, and the snow fell gently and perfectly. And I'm thankful for the invite from a team playing a game following mine (with MOSES!) because they needed another girl (each team has to have at least two girls on the ice), and that I had the time and flexibility to join them. It was a beautiful night for friendship and broomball.

Lastly, I'm thankful for this encouragement from KTIS that I would like to pass along: "Your perspective could change when you're lifted up." May God's love lift you up today and all days!

Today I'm thankful for an entertaining twist to what was intended to be a contentedly relaxed breakfast friend date. My friend and I were still contentedly relaxed, but we were approached by staff from the Admissions Office because, well, we were just hanging out in the most happening part of the campus center. We were asked to model some cute winter accessories for a new photo spread to be in Admissions publications to prove to anxious prospective students that we Carls can indeed survive the winter. (I must add we are doing this during the coldest week we have had for a while, so we'd better prove we can survive!). I would never consider myself photogenic, nor do I really ever feel comfortable in front of a camera (partial reason for preferring to be behind one), but I'm thankful for this opportunity to just be ridiculously silly and play around with the hipster mustache finger warmer they begged me to model with following a pair of Valentine's red mittens. So many giggles. And even though my friend and I did not get to catch up about as much as we had hoped, we just added a shared experience to our life story.

I'm thankful for another unexpected but pleasant surprise of a live looping artist's concert over the noon hour in the campus center. It did add another challenge to getting to know one of the new freshmen in the Christian community, but the creativity and coves of Noah Hoehn were pretty wonderful background to a lovely conversation. 

I'm thankful to have gotten to watch Grey's in real time upon a decision enacted and implemented in just ten minutes - it was wonderful to veg with one of my best friends and watch our silly show, and was well worth switching from pajamas to real clothes and dashing off to campus in my cold car.

Wow, it really sounds like I did nothing but have friend time today! I was indeed blessed with a lot of friend time, but I so enjoy being able to schedule in friend time around work, emails, volunteering, etc. I am a tired but lucky girl.

Today's inspiration: GOOD ("a global community of, by, and for pragmatic idealists working towards individual and collective progress") encourages you to set aside just one percent of your time to serving your community this year. That comes out to just 20 hours of your life. In a year. Will you pledge to respect and serve not just everyone in your circles, but "the least of these" as well? A little bit of good from a lot of people amounts to a heck of a lot of good. Will you pledge with me to dedicate just 20 hours this year to serving your community?
http://www.good.is/posts/commit-1-percent-of-your-time-to-service-this-year

Today I'm thankful for the dusting of snow that appeared to be a thin blanket from my bedroom window but was in actuality no more than the weight of dandelion wisps.

I'm thankful to do real-people things with friends, like eat meals and run errands. It is nice to feel independent but also not have to do it alone.

I have also been blessed by wonderful friends whose friendship, laughter, and love, are more than enough, so a thank-you card from a dear friend today was just an extra-special warm-and-fuzzy.

I'm thankful for opportunities for fellowship and spiritual growth. We as foolish humans cannot claim to have everything figured out. Science is too great, God is too great, the mind of another human being is too great, all beyond the scope of our meager understanding. So as we humbly take part in what we are called to do on this earth, a mantra that has inspired me tonight is that of a 99-year-old woman highlighted in my home church's newsletter. "Believe the best you can, but live the best you can."

Today I'm thankful to get back into writing mode! Last night's Mustard Seed was exactly what I needed to fill me up and refresh me so I could do some good, hearty, focused work today.

I'm thankful for friends with whom I am completely comfortable, and I'm thankful for getting to know and being challenged by new friends about faith and life experiences. 

I'm thankful for the realization that I function better with structure in my days, which I have known conceptually for a long time... but as I am getting some real-world experience and flexibility at this point to fill my days with both paid work and fulfilling activities (and do God's work all the time, of course, which in my life means trying to be a vessel for God's love all the time and in every context!), I have realized (again), just how important a little structure is to the value of my human capital (apologies to non-social science majors on that one...).

And I'm thankful to have the opportunity, time, and flexibility to start volunteering with TORCH today. TORCH stands for Tackling Obstacles and Raising College Hopes, and this program has done so much to try to close the achievement gap in Northfield schools and work with low-income and minority students to get them into and prepared for college (more here!). I know that it is not my calling to be a classroom teacher, but I do enjoy working one-on-one with students and also gaining a better understanding of our education system. While the concept of problem-free public education is a pipe dream, equal access to education, I believe (and have researched, please feel free to ask me about my senior thesis sometime - basically governments should invest in solid healthcare and education systems for their populations), is a crucial component to the sustainable development of any country, including our own. The education system must be able to tap into the human potential and unique talents of every person, and the circumstances in which you were born or grew up may affect how likely you are to get stuck or how likely you are to have the chance to go to college, but if you have the skills and drive to do college, you should darn well get the chance to be prepared and encouraged along the way.

For those reasons, I am thankful to see TORCH at work these next few months as a case study of sorts, and on a personal level, I look forward to connecting with, encouraging, and learning from these high schoolers who face obstacles to furthering their education that I was fortunate to have never had to face.

Tonight I am thankful for the message at the Mustard Seed service: joy. It can be a little hard to find when you have to burrow your head into 12 layers of clothing and shuffle between buildings in this wave of extreme winter with a windchill of something like -40 (Fahrenheit...) and little sun. My friends on campus said it was a timely message, and in my own life, I have been discovering I have needed to work a little harder to fill myself up to be able to access that true, fundamental joy.

One of the revelations I have had recently is that I simply need more sleep. I learned in college that I functioned well and productively on six hours if I got a twenty-minute power nap during the day, but lately I have not been taking care of myself well on that simple measure of admitting to myself that during the winter I just need more sleep to be at tip-top brain productivity. And as I have been in a little bit of a funk lately, not getting as much of the work writing I have wanted to get done, I have also been lax on the little things that I know reconnect me with God and help me channel that joy and get me jazzed about getting things done - things I know have a beautiful end result, but the process is the mental hurdle.

And as I have been feeling just depleted lately, focusing an entire hour of energy on songs and verses and prayer directed towards joy, that was just what I needed. Not to mention so many hugs, so many hugs. And perfect words from a friend who I rarely have the opportunity to stand next to in Mustard Seed: "It may be a little cheesy, but sometimes God has to empty you in order to fill you up again."

Here is my own cheesiness: if you walk through the valley, there is a mountain somewhere! In the meantime, the bad stuff may not go away as soon as you would like, or maybe not at all, but you can control how you react to it. Maybe you need alone time, maybe you need music, maybe you need hugs, whatever works for you to not avoid it but to walk through it. And God is there to walk with you. Pretty cool, right? You can access the Spirit within you, and if you are struggling, there are people out there who would jump at the chance to lift you up again!

When the Mustard Seed leaders encouraged us all to take a few minutes to pray and listen to what God could tell you about joy, this is what came to me: Dance like David. Let the Spirit move you. That could have helped me today with my Zumba class because I perhaps saved choreographing a few songs until later than I was comfortable with, so in the class I was probably concentrating too hard on making sure I knew what I was doing. It is my job to be prepared, but I also have to be able to let it flow through me. I love to dance. I love to dance! And I want to share that love with others.

Every time I teach Zumba, I want to come into the class with that joy that overflows. I am not a natural extrovert, so keeping the class fun, being silly, and trying to be a positive force for motivation can feel like it requires extra energy beyond the natural high that dance brings me, especially when the weather outdoors does not really help anyone's mood indoors. But even though the class seemed a little more subdued today, my work was reaffirmed by several participants afterwards, including by a woman who was initially nervous about taking Zumba because she had not worked out seriously for twenty years and has never taken a dance class (just an aside, you do not need to know how to dance!). Walking out the door she said, "Zumba is basically the most fun thing you can do for a workout!" What a blessing it was to hear that. 

I will leave you with a final note about joy that is especially pertinent if you have been walking through a valley lately as well. This came to me yesterday in a Verse of the Day email, and before I fill myself with sleep, it is a blessing to review this verse: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance," James 1: 2-3.

Today I'm thankful for breakfast and bubble tea dates.

I'm thankful for t-shirt weather, and then sun when it got deathly cold.

I'm thankful for the invite to teach Zumba for the Myers dorm as a health and wellness program and for some serious enthusiasm to dance it up on a Friday afternoon after classes were over.

I'm thankful for my housemates wanting cable TV because even though I do not really need it, I did rather enjoy multi-tasking by working in front of some intense Australian Open matches.

I'm thankful to have opportunities to learn from and talk with others who are in or are considering working in social justice careers, recognizing the emotional toll as you try to take on the world's macro and micro problems and the balance between working for the well-being of others and meeting your own financial needs.

I'm thankful to be in a place where I can be content to experience and be thankful in the moment. Because lately I have had the pleasure of being there for friends and being silly with them, I do not need to rely so much on intentional written reflection. Unfortunately for this blog, that means I perhaps am getting more lax on writing, but it is my dearest hope that I am living out my thankfulness and recognizing how I have been blessed every moment, every day.

Today I'm thankful for free advice and free tamales. Panels at Carleton are always a wonderful resource, and I definitely did not make time for enough of them while I was a student, but today I got to go to one on careers in social justice (and as that is the path I am looking at, it is always beneficial to hear about others' experiences) and then a dinner on healthy relationships and how to be a supportive friend when you have a friend in need. I am thankful to always be learning, and I am thankful that Carleton will still feed me once in a while. This is truly such a supportive network with so many people wanting to help the student body and alums as well, and I am blessed to still be connected.

I'm thankful to have been able to be there the past couple days for my friend who is recovering from a recent eye injury. How worrisome it could be to not be able to do your readings for class, see the board, watch class performances and to rely on friends to walk you to class and to meetings in the winter weather. We are all thankful that it is just a temporary blindness but that she is not wallowing in it but using it to think about her world in different ways. It is actually amazing that this is my friend who has pursued choreographing a modern dance to convey what it would be like to be blind, and she just so happens to be struck with temporary blindness while she is still involved with this project. I have seen that it already has made her pay more attention to her other senses and, as awful and real as her pain and light sensitivity have been, it will perhaps be a blessing for her to connect with her dance in an even more tangible, personal way.

I am thankful to be my friend's seeing-eye friend.

It also made me realize that while I have a few friends who have some learning disabilities in terms of focus or dyslexia, etc., I do not have any friends who have a permanent physical disability such as blindness or deafness. I will never fully understand what life is like for someone who lives with a permanent disability, but seeing my friend have to adapt in ways such as counting the number of steps from her room to the bathroom and depend on others for assistance has in turn caused me to ponder what it would be like to adapt to what is "normal." And I am thankful that I was born with a body that most of the time does what it is supposed to and that I have never experienced a handicap or disability. I hope we can be mindful and be humbled by how others in our communities and world who have been handed a tougher set of cards adapt and do what they need to do.

I also got a random email from a man from my church today who found a possible writing opportunity and thought of me, so I am so thankful once again for my church community and for people who are looking out for me. He noted and apologized in his email that it was short notice because the application is due tomorrow but I'm thankful I had time to crank it out today, drawing from the body of other applications and writing I have done!

While I may have procrastinated on other responsibilities today, I am thankful that I can sleep tonight and take care of them tomorrow.

Today I'm thankful to just relax with one of my best friends and be both tired and silly with her. I'm thankful we got to chill out, catch up, watch the latest Grey's Anatomy, and have a lunch date too!

I'm thankful that when my car did not start when I was attempting to leave campus that I did not have to be anywhere immediately, that it was over 20 degrees outside, that when I reached inside my trunk for jumper cables, another soul was in the right place at the right time. I must have had a furrowed brow I was unaware of because he just walked right over and asked if my car was having trouble, proceeded to pull his truck over next to mine, and walk me through the jump-start process. I am fortunate that I have never had to jump my little Civic before and that it has never given me any trouble, and I am so thankful that if the whole car-not-starting lesson had to happen, it happened the way it did. 

I'm thankful for the energy to make it through a double Zumba class day even if it means I did not have the willpower to resist my stash of dark chocolate-covered almonds. 

I'm thankful for snow.

I'm thankful for a snapshot of what a couple of my friends are learning in a masculinity in Christianity class and mulling over theories of why we were created as gendered beings while our God and our souls are genderless.

I'm thankful for a Hustle lesson at Social Dance Club and following without falling on my face.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to consider going to Jason Gray's free concert on Monday at the Mall of America, especially because I can just rock out to his tunes in the meantime, especially these!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4omFQJEAAVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8

Aaaaand I'm thankful for autosave on Blogger so that my draft still existed after Firefox froze. While technology can complicate life sometimes, appreciating what we have and not taking it for granted is a good thing to practice. On that note, I bid you all goodnight from the blogosphere!

Today I'm thankful for progress on setting up social justice events in the Northfield community. While logistics for details like room reservations get tricky now that I am an alum, I am so fortunate to have a few connections on campus to student groups and professors that are willing to work with me. At Carleton it can be so hard to get people motivated to go to your event because most students are running around between academics and other activities, and as always it is a humbling experience to work with and rely on others to take care of aspects of planning that I cannot simply because of my role in the community now.

I'm thankful for recently bookmarking a recipe to make "ice cream" with frozen bananas just days before I accidentally left my banana in my car outside overnight. I got to experiment by blending it smoothly with a little almond butter thrown in, and while it still tastes like banana, and therefore you have to enjoy the banana flavor, the consistency was lovely!

I'm thankful for my first-ever broomball game and that my friends would welcome me as both an alum and as a first-timer. Minnesota born and bred, and I had never played broomball before! It was always on my college bucket list, but I stayed away from it because there was actual possibility of injuring myself when I had made my commitment to my tennis team and staying healthy for them as best I could. Broomball was also a humbling experience, given the lack of traction literally brought me to my knees, and well, I do not like being bad at things. So, I have discovered if I want to get better (which I really do! I want to actually help the team rather than just be a scrub who falls all over the place...), I will have to work on movement strategies, get myself accustomed to whacking a ball with a tiny surface area compared to a tennis or badminton racket, and..... embrace the sucking for now as gracefully as possible. 

Today I am wonderfully glad that I went to the Carleton Christian community retreat this weekend for the first time ever, and I am thankful for those who asked if I was going (even though I'm an alum) and successfully convinced me. Especially as I am kind of at this funky place in life where I do not know how best to balance seeking relationships in the Christian community now that I have graduated, focusing on work and future possible doors, and getting to know my housemates while attempting to be a semi-real person, it was so great that we talked a lot about God's love and defining success as knowing that God loves us and we love God back! And if we can set our sights on that, we're doing pretty okay. Not as if that's super easy, and we all go through ups and downs, but when we are like the prodigal son (another theme of the weekend, and we are at times of our life more like the elder son when we get self-righteous and believe we have done A, B, and C and therefore we deserve X, Y, and Z) and come back to God with humility and wanting to put God first, we are welcomed with God running to meet us wherever we are. How cool as that!

My main takeaways from the weekend:
- I'm thankful for a weekend of writing, of silly dancing, of new friendships, of spending time with God, and of being able to allow flashes of vulnerability.
- I'm at this place where I want to pursue knowledge of God through the Word, but it's a struggle getting my heart into that place sometimes... I hope my heart will continue to change because once I do sit down and get myself into both tackling theological questions and finding amazement, I know that it nourishes me. I have to learn to make the time to prepare my heart because when I do actually create that space, I am filled. 
- One of the sermons we watched talked about struggling with temptations and reactions to things that may make us feel frustrated, jealous, self-righteous, insecure, etc., and while I have been trying to address those kinds of feelings with a reminder that "Love is patient, love is kind," the pastor reframed that intention in a really helpful way. Rather than either addressing anger as anger and trying to make it go away, or rather than focusing on some external ideal, we can focus on how God can work within us by saying instead, "Spirit, thank you for reigning in me in patience/peace/love (you can totally pick any one of the nine fruits of the Spirit, or whatever speaks to you!)." God is with us, and God is in us. Let God's light and love shine through you!

I also picked up my guitar tonight for the first time in a while, and after a couple of songs, I drifted into "Hallelujah" (Jeff Buckley) and realized how amazing this last verse in particular is. I may slip into bouts of non-feeling and floods of feelings, and I recognize life is a mess that we are all trying to get through as gracefully as possible, but I am trying to acknowledge the mess the best that I can so that I can truly just thank God and let my soul rest easily when it's all said and done.
"I did my best but it wasn't much, I couldn't feel so I tried to touch.
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song
with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah..."

And I'm thankful that when I slipped something I have been struggling with recently into the super-long life update/bible study email with one of my besties, her almost immediate reply was simply "Oh Kathryn, I'm so sorry!" and to ask if I wanted to talk sometime soon. What amazing things can happen when you try to open yourself up to love. Even when you are in a season (and I say when, not if) where you are feeling farther from God's love, when you move two inches towards it, it can come flooding back towards you in return.

Today I'm thankful for "May I Kiss You?" presentation at Carleton that found the right mix of hilarious and serious, for strong survivors of sexual assault, and late-night philosophical and life conversation on Thursday night that kept me from writing here yesterday, but I would not have had it any other way. In response to the presentation, we all can do our part to educate all in our society to respect each other and to not force intimacy against someone's will, whether under the influence or not, and we also need to be there to listen to our loved ones if/when they are in need. Only an individual knows when they are ready for intimacy, and two people should be on the same page if they are ready for that together because it should be a beautiful thing, and yes, a beautiful, consensual, thing. You all deserve that respect, and yes, consent is sexy, so ask for it.

In addition to lighter and various other topics, we talked theory-based versus experiential education, looking at where we are called to be in life and what steps are tough but necessary to get there. Especially with a lot of my now-senior friends going through comps (Carleton's senior thesis project), memories resurfaced of those days when I too, along with my Forge girls, struggled with the purpose of this project in our lives and wanting to do well not for anyone else's standards or pressure but own goals of graduation, satisfaction in our project, and knowledge for knowledge's sake. And that in whatever circumstances we are handed, we are called to do the best we can.

Sometimes senioritis sets in during the comps process, actually, I'm pretty sure (although please correct me if my assumption is innacurate) that literally everyone asks the question, "Whyyyyy am I doing this? What is the point? I just want to be done........" If comps to you is just a graduation requirement, do your best work that you need to graduate. Your effort should be reflective of your end goal, and perhaps the little time you have left in college is better spent involved in other activities, but you are also there to serve an academic purpose that is meant to prepare you for the next stage in life. Comps is not a be-all-end-all, but I would hope it can be a project you are proud of and that you can rest easily knowing you gave it your best while being realistic in your priorities. Seniors, you've got this!

I'm thankful for many things today. I'm thankful that this freak-January rain gave me a free carwash. I'm thankful that my dental saga is finally over and that my dentists have put in so much effort over the past months to fix my tooth just right. I'm thankful for a lovely day in the Cities with my fellow Carleton alum-bum as I dragged her to my appointment before we could do some culinary exploration (that included mango bubble tea with a touch of rum! Qualifying my excitement by saying we did not get anything near tipsy, just a little silly!). And I am thankful that we finally got to go to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts' Terracotta Warriors exhibit like we had been wanting for weeks. The intricacy and uniqueness of each soldier was astounding, not to mention that level of detail and personalization on such a unfathomable scale, recognizing the cost in human life and freedom to make this feat of an actual clay army to protect the tomb of China's first emperor possible. Only eight of the 6,000 terracotta soldiers could visit us at the MIA, but that only fueled my desire to put Xi'An at the top of my list of to-go places if I have an opportunity to return to China someday. Someday, God-willing.

Today was a bit of a challenge, energy-wise. On Wednesdays, I now have to be perky at 8:30am. Not just to be up and moving or pretending to pay attention in a class, but teaching a Zumba class. Which is not as bad as 6am workouts like my tennis team had weekly last year, but I'm still "learning to be the light!" I have the opportunity to get others excited about Zumba, excited about dance, and excited about feeling healthy. And I'm still learning how to get on a decent sleep schedule to survive the winter. I'm learning.

I'm also learning how to find a healthy balance with the food component of the whole energy concept. Some bodies feel like they will reject all food if they eat right before working out, while mine will make me pass out if I do not eat enough beforehand. And when I am exaggerating moves so my class can follow along, I am getting a great workout, which I am so thankful for, but I am struggling to balance getting enough protein, nutrition, etc. in my system and the knowledge that I also need to get a little lighter. I have been blessed with too much wonderful food the last few months, and with wanting to live up local cuisine while traveling, I am not where I want to be fitness-wise. And I can tell. And I am sure my family can tell, whether they say anything about it or not. And I may struggle internally 1000 percent more than I let on, which is why the little side-comments or even pointed comments are even harsher (albeit well-intentioned) because they do not know how much I think about it every single day, every meal, every snack, every workout.

I am not the first, nor will I be the last, girl (or human in general) to struggle with some body image issues. I am learning how to embrace the body God has given me as well as the metabolism that no longer lets me eat whatever I want. While I was a varsity athlete in college, I put so much pressure on myself to stay in shape because it was crucial to top performance. I could tell five extra pounds would slow me down, and so I put a bit of pressure on myself that would make me go a little crazy sometimes. Like the guilt you see in TV commercials after indulging in my favorite dessert ever, chocolate torte.

I have been liberated from the strict confines of my sport that I set for myself and also to be an example of fitness for the rest of my team. In tennis, when you can get to that extra ball and keep the point going, or if you can outlast your opponent's stamina in a four-hour match, you have a distinct advantage. But now I am so thankful that I am getting paid to work out and help spread Zumba joy! And my health and my fitness are fully mine to take care of, and my health goals, my motivation, the way I eat, and the way I exercise will be with me the rest of my life. They are only my decisions to make, and I need strength to make good decisions, but also to find God's peace and do the best that I can. Not to prove anything to anyone other than myself. Not to reach some superficial ideal of a body. But to feel healthy and confident in myself and in the body that God has given me for this limited time.

I just wanted to put this out there for whoever is reading because maybe you are also in the same boat and are trying to be mindful of how you are taking care of yourself and accepting the body that you have. I am putting this out there that I have struggled over the years since I have grown into a body that is no longer a stick: I needed some muscle, but with putting on a little muscle came a little more squish than I would prefer also. I have probably joked about it with a good number of friends, but I have divulged my battles to few. I have tried to encourage many a friend to do their best to find peace in their bodies and have "happy and healthy" be their goal, but I need to remember that for myself as well. Again, I'm learning.

On other notes, I am thankful to have deposited my first being-in-Northfield paycheck, to get to use up a Subway gift card for a lovely lunch date and talk about faith/futures/writing personalities/life, run into another classmate who is randomly here for a few months, and to try to relearn ballroom dance at Social Dance Club!

Here's to a new day tomorrow: a day to get things done, a day of rest for my legs, and a day to hopefully focus on my writing to continue processing my Cuba experience and let knowledge abound.

Today I give thanks that the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are back! Nothing like news and hilarity wrapped into one.

I'm thankful to have meal dates with friends-in-faith where we can check in on life and also know we can always be there for each other spiritually too.

I'm thankful for new co-workers excited to have me on board.

I'm thankful for lotion.

I'm thankful that even if none of the things that would help advance my career this summer pan out, I could still fall back on a summer job that still wants me.

And I'm thankful for keeping this blog up for a decent amount of time now and for all you readers who stick with me even when I have nothing particularly profound to say! Thanks for being there.

Today I give thanks for support from my alma mater. There are still so many resources available to me, encouragement to go to the revamped Career Center, ways to get reconnected into the Christian community here, and so many welcoming arms back at Carleton. It will still be strange to be hanging around as an alum, but so many seem to look to me like I have experience or something. I am still trying to figure things out, but with God's grace, I love being a resource when called upon, and I am so ready to get plugged back in. Even though my own faith goes through dry spells, as everyone's does (seriously), I want to be a gap-stander for others who may be struggling with their faith or are simply growing into it and seeing more ways in which God is working in their lives every day. It is such a cool process, and I first learned the term "gap-stander" in a recent Encouragement of the Day. We cannot help others just have faith. To have a personal relationship with God and know why you believe what you do requires you to do some heavy lifting, but that does not mean you should have to do it alone. Nor does it mean I should let you think you have to figure it all out by yourself. I do not want to be a bystander in others' faith journeys, but rather a gap-stander to be their support when they need it and see how God is working through them. It nourishes me too and helps strengthen and revitalize my own faith!

If you feel you have fallen off track a little bit, I ran across a good resource today, called "When You Miss God." It can be so easy to just rush about life, trying to take everything into our own hands, but being intentional about even five minutes with God every day is an indication that you are reaching out to God and wanting God's love to flow through everything you do. So if you're missing God, here you go:
http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/nicki-koziarz/when-you-miss-god.html

I'm thankful that, while I know numbers will undoubtedly dwindle as the term gets busier, my first Zumba class at Carleton had about thirty people in it today! I'm thankful for hugs from friends that six months ago (and even two years ago from a friend who left Carleton for his Korean military service!) I did not know if I would ever see again. I'm trying not to miss God. I'm trying to find God anywhere and everywhere. And I am still trying to recognize every day how God is working in my life and give thanks for how I have been so richly blessed.

Today I'm thankful for continued momentum among my Cuba delegation to pass each other resources, encourage each other to keep talking with friends and family about our experience, and do more for the US-Cuba relationship. This is something I am passionate about, and it is unbelievably hard to feel that connection to Cuba from here, but so many Cubans spoke to us from the heart, imploring that we not return and do nothing, but remember our experience and act on it. A quote from a documentary on faith and immigration that I watched recently fits in: "We should be concerned not with how states are drawn, but how we see each child of God. As people of faith, we should be concerned with how we treat one another."

One of my fellow delegates sent along a petition to end travel restrictions, and in response, here is what I posted on Facebook: "I want every U.S. citizen to have the freedom and opportunity to travel to Cuba as I have. They are a beautiful people, and I strongly believe cross-cultural connections and understanding each other's reality can overcome a messy political relationship. Will you sign and circulate this petition to end U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba?" My apologies for using this blog as a political platform, but I write out of faith and conscience, and I do not require you to agree with me, but I do hope that you consider how US policy affects other beautiful children of God that are separated from us by 90 miles but a world of political stubbornness.

Today I emailed female elders in a community we met with to tell them that our tiny group is making good on our promise to come back and do something. To send a message to President Obama and our elected representatives and see where it gets us. To tell our world about them and spread the word that if Americans and Cubans love each other, we should be able to travel to Cuba and to end the blockade that is stuck in an era far different than the one in which we live now. My life has been so richly blessed by opportunities to learn through the intense, the intellectual, and the objective now complemented by the intense, the emotional, and the interpersonal. I emailed Cuba. Wow.

I am also thankful for a relaxing afternoon of scrumptious scone baking with my fellow alum bum in Northfield, to be followed by my first Zumba class at the Just Food community room! The co-op outreach coordinator has been so incredibly wonderful and supportive of my idea to start a class there, and we are truly in this together. She so wants the class to succeed and keep it going for as long as I am in town, and today I got to dance it up with a small core group who is dedicated to this whole six-week session, so we will see if they are able to convince more friends to join them for future classes!

And I am thankful for a nice night capped off by a flurry of Cuba travel blogging (although this post is so full it might take me a couple of days) intermixed with a random, sweet call from a high school friend to check in, a chat about cuisine and travel yearnings with one of my housemates over caipirinhas, and pleasant writing distractions in the form of Facebook conversations with two lovely friends who I am lucky to have in my life.

Today I'm thankful for some beautiful children of God. My housemate is the sweetest and is writing notes for his girlfriend for every weekday she is away in Denmark for four months! Today I was also blessed to be able to talk hoops with him and his friend who is visiting, to just catch up and relax with one of my best friends (who gave me a most wonderful Christmas gift of a 1 Corinthians 13:13 silver bracelet because she knows I love 1 Cor 13!), to receive lovely all-staff email by my new boss at the Y welcoming me, and to be sent home from an awesome coffeehouse at the Cottage with homemade spinach dip and dessert salad because they know I'm an alum fending for myself and attempting to feed myself.

Random but helpful life thought today: when one has a bad hair day, wear a hat! My fellow curly-girls, why stress about unruliness? Today I'm thankful I can keep a newsboy around.

Another realization: my "Purchased on iTunes" playlist reflects my priorities as of late: a whole lot of Christian music and a whole lot of Latin music. So many smiles.

My night was capped off by an intelligent conversation on human rights, socialism, and Cuban politics on Facebook after I posted my first travel blog entry on Cuba (http://kemstravels.blogspot.com/ if you're interested!). You never know whose interest will be piqued or who will be inspired by what you put out there, but to see one of my best high school friends and one of my high school Spanish teacher commenting, how amazing is that!

Today I'm thankful for carpooling and real-worlding.

I'm thankful for working at home in my pajamas.

I'm thankful for running into an old tennis teammate in the Rec Center to catch up about our respective travels and work on our post-travel-cuisine bodies.

I'm thankful for the burn after a good sprint workout.

I'm thankful to see one of my good high school friends find his calling in college and now get to follow his incredible job opportunity to California, even though it was hard for all of us who care about him to say goodbye at his last bash tonight.

I'm thankful for hugs and silliness with guy friends and being able to tell them that I love them without (hopefully) any complicated feelings. I love guy time. It balances me out, and I am so fortunate to have a great crew of guy friends here, and I'm sure we've all had DTRs (defining the relationship talks) at one point or another to guard our hearts and not have any mixed signals so we can just relax and enjoy each other's company.

And I'm thankful for cross-country picture texts of old traditions such as food-baby demonstrations from those who I wish were still in this place with me, just hanging out in Northfield, not worrying about homework either.

Well, I'm all moved in and officially "Upstairs Kathryn," given there are two of us with the same name in a four-person house! I'm so thankful that the drive down to Northfield went smoothly given the flurries, and just driving into town was unbelievably gorgeous. Just the thinnest cloud layer diffused the sun that lit up the hoarfrost- and snow-covered trees. What a perfect welcome.

I'm thankful for the coming days and weeks of getting to know my housemates - they all seem sweet, and I'm sure at the very least, we can all coexist splendidly. And I'm thankful for the modern convenience of soft water and decent water pressure, even though I got totally accustomed to the Nicaraguan bucket bath this summer.

I will admit though, I am missing having a roommate, like I knew I would. I was so fortunate to have wonderful roommates and housemates all through Carleton, and living with friends, while hard at times, was so healthy to have that support system right there (provided we were home once in a while rather than camped in our respective academic buildings). Who is going to tell me to go to bed at a reasonable hour? Who is going to be my incentive for keeping my things reasonably tidy? I am an only child that has spent so much of her life alone, and while I know how to entertain myself and not get bored, I think I have always liked being around people even if it took me a good number of years to semi-understand how to interact with them. It will be more of a challenge for me to look at having completely my own space as a blessing and not having my someone to come home to, but all in due time, and for now, I can have friend sleepovers if I want given the fact that my room randomly came with two twin beds. Plus I basically have a well-lit painting studio and dance studio to practice Zumba all wrapped into one!

I perhaps prioritized hanging up a few art scrolls and canvasses that I've collected from my travels over really feeling satisfied with my furniture arrangement, but things will fall into their places. I'm thankful that even though life feels like a little bit of a mess right now, I have friends who text me to go traying (borrow a dining hall tray and sled down the magnificent Bell Hill!) in the most perfect weather and light snow on their free afternoon or to watch Psych and catch up on life until late. I'm thankful that a conversation that caused some sleeplessness and could have derailed me didn't, thanks to my newly groomed instinct to turn on KTIS (or my Mustard Seed playlist when radio is inaccessible) when life gets rough and let God speak to me through music. A song was just ending when I pressed the power button, and what came on next was "I want to fall in love with you." And my first instinct was to think romantic human love, but what the lyrics actually mean and what I want is for my heart to truly know the meaning of "I want to fall in love with You," God. I want to have God fill me up and let life flow from there. I hope I am coming out of this season where I have been placing too much stake in human fulfillment, because as much good as can come out of human beings working together and supporting each other, people disappoint and God never does. "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me."

Finally I'm thankful for how a sequence of complicated choreography from an Ebony dance (Carleton's student-choreographed dance group) just snapped back into my brain and muscle memory enough to rise in my insomnia and let it move me almost flawlessly. That was indeed a blessing, a respite in the middle of the night.

Today I am thankful for nerves of anticipation. Tomorrow begins a new chapter in my life, despite the fact that I will be returning to my beloved college town and for just six months (as far as I know!). I am overjoyed to be closer to many of my Carleton friends again (still missing all of you who graduated and are now dispersed around the country/world!), and especially to be able to spend time with them and just enjoy a taste of campus life without homework. I am still semi-putting off real life and a real-world job, but I will be getting real-world experience with part-time jobs in addition to possible volunteering and pouring more time into my writing and artistic pursuits. And I will be getting a taste of simple joys of adult life like having to purchase my own paper, both printer and toilet, feeding myself full-time, and hoping the adorable room in a gorgeous house that I found on Craigslist is the right place for me. Tomorrow morning I'll pack up my little Civic, hit the road, get my new keys, and make a new space my own. With possibly a twinkle of snow on the side.

I'm also thankful for a nice New Year's Eve tradition upheld last night with one of my high school friends even though none of the rest of our friend crew could make it. For time today to cook omlettes for the parentals, use them as guinea pigs for some new Zumba choreography, and have silly family game night. For time to pack without being in a rush, and for time to have dinner with a good friend before popping out of town.

Until I write from a new home!