Tag: friends

Self-discovery and second opinions

Today, I am sharing with you (whoever you may be) an e-mail, which I wrote earlier today. I feel it expresses the exact reason for which I have been calm and at ease today and tonight, and even did laundry without a fuss just a bit ago, and have made plans for my next load tomorrow (and with ease of mind).

Note: The thing I am referencing, the thing to which I listened Sunday morning, is a Ted 250 talk on making hard decisions, which my dad had sent me.

 

Listened to this Sunday morning, and been thinking about it ever since.  Mom, I just sent you some texts about my current thoughts, but here’s an e-mail to keep you two in the loop on my thinking, and to give a space for each of your thoughts on the matter.

As I mentioned to you, Mom, I think I’m not a big business person.  (I’d been considering looking for work with Schlumberger or the likes)  I could be a big business person, and I don’t want to be one… not really.  I only want the money and the prestige for it, the respect from others, and their high opinions of me.  As you mentioned recently, Mom, other’s people’s opinions of me are none of my business.  An initially difficult thought, but a powerful and releasing one.  If I were to be a big business person, I realize (and I have always known this on some level) that it would be a never-ending effort to keep the real me alive, to maintain who I am at heart…, because the big business is not who I truly am, you see.  Suits are fun, but only on occasion – I don’t want the daily suit lifestyle.  (Though, to be fair, I might like it better if this were the norm!!  Is it weird that I can So see Rob in these?  But I digress…)
So, I think I want to do art school.  I am constantly thinking about how I want to be trained in art skills (since high school, actually), and have always somehow seen myself being in a million art classes.  I’m not sure exactly how to go about doing it, but I think I want to start with working and schooling together in [—].  I can do [Community College] evenings as a start, with subbing and tutoring and potentially teaching a couple classes part-time, as well as reffing (and possibly coaching) lacrosse.  Perhaps, after I’ve done some art classes, I’ll know if I want to go into an official school or something – I’ll at least know if I like what I’m doing, and it will only be one university semester to figure that out (as opposed to a high school semester or an academic year or more).
My main thought is that I need to focus my life around the things for which I most long, instead of finding work that provides the money to do the things I want to do, and just doing those things on the side, and often ending up not having time for them in the first place.
Mom, I know you already said, and quite perfectly, “If you build it, they will come.  Follow your heart, and the money will follow.”  (Yes, I added commas for myself.)  Nonetheless, I would love for y’all’s thoughts and ideas on it all.  You two know me best, and in two different ways, so I look most to you two for… well, everything.  😛
Love y’all!
Peace

Hannah

Okay, two e-mails – I also want to share my follow-up e-mail to my mother’s response to the initial e-mail…

 

Haha!  Yep!  Get it.  Got it.  Good.  And I liked how what she said inspired my thinking, as opposed to all of the specific things she said for their own value and meaning.  Some was great, and a lot was “Okay…..?”  The end result, however, was an inspired thinking and evaluation of my current situation of “hard decisions” to be made.  I like looking at it as Who do I want to be out of this decision/choice? and What has integrity for who I want to be?

 
Love y’all.
Peace

Hannah

Post-a-day 2017

Songs for Friends and Self

First off,

😀   Merry Christmas!   😀


Via the natural flow of thoughts in my head, I found myself singing a song that a friend and I wrote (to the tune of another song) as a goodbye present to another friend of ours a few years back.  This other friend was heading to the US for a semester abroad, and so we set up a sort of going away surprise in which everyone could participate.

It was Sylvia’s idea, the song.  She picked one of Gunnar’s favorite songs, and decided to write new words to it.  About an hour-ish before we were supposed to head out to meet up with other friends to practice the song, she had gotten only a few sentences into it, and so I ended up taking over and putting the bulk of it together.

We threw a thumbs up on it, and rushed off to rehearse with other friends.  At rehearsal, we changed a word or two to make things easier for folks, and organized our plan of action to get out the lyrics to everyone after Mass that evening (the going away party was taking place right after the young-ish adults Mass where we all went together).  The song ended up going beautifully and being a total hit – it was just as we’d hoped, and all was well as we sent our good friend on his way.

Now, I completely meant the words when I wrote them for our friend Gunnar.  However, a few weeks later, as I, myself, was leaving the country to go back to the US, the song suddenly sounded like something I had actually written for myself.  To this day, the song gets stuck in my head (although I have no recording of it, and have not since that month looked at the lyrics), and it, somehow, is always comforting – I miss living in Vienna terribly, but this song somehow makes everything okay how it is right now.  I guess God’s just good at making things work out that way.  🙂  I have this dual feeling that 1) if I move back to Vienna, I’ll never want to leave again, and 2) if I even visit Vienna, I’ll be utterly disappointed with how it compares to having lived there before and loving it so much then.  I think that, no matter what, I have to go back, though.  I’ll try a visit first – maybe next year for Christmas – and see how that goes, huh?  Sounds good to me.  🙂  Anyway…

Enjoy.       (To the tune of “Wherever You Will Go” by The Calling)

P.S.  BeFree is the name of the Mass we all attended, and which had brought most of us together as friends in Vienna

6. Jan 2013

VERSE 1

So lately, been wondering
Who will be there to take your place.
When you’re gone, we’ll need one
To play that music filled with grace.
If it really is God’s will,
Then we guess that you can go.
Just remember us back here
While you’re off in USA

CHORUS
If we could, then we would
Keep you  with us here in Wien.
But God sends you elsewhere,
So take care, have fun, and BeFree!

VERSE 2

Hopefully, you’ll find out
The way to make it back someday.
Until then, God bless you
And help you all throughout your days.
If it really is God’s will,
Then, Columbia, here he is!
And we hope that, while you’re out there,
The Lord’s grace still flows from you.

CHORUS

If we could, then we would
Keep you  with us here in Wien.
But God sends you elsewhere,
So take care, have fun, and BeFree!

BRIDGE

God give Gunnar your blessing.
Give him helping hands and friends.
Give him everything he needs!

CHORUS

If we could, then we would
Keep you  with us here in Wien.
But God sends you elsewhere,
So take care, have fun, and BeFree

VERSE 3

You’re leaving.  We’ll miss you,
but all our lives will still go on.
In your heart, in your mind,
May God be with you all the time.
If it really is God’s will,
Then we guess that you can go.
Just remember us back here
While you’re off in USA

CHORUS

If we could, then we would
Keep you  with us here in Wien
But God sends you elsewhere
So take care, have fun, and BeFree

If we could, then we would
Keep you  with us here in Wien
But God sends you elsewhere
So take care, have fun, and BeeeeFreeeeee

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It’s just not Christmas

It just doesn’t feel like Christmas without family and friends with whom to be jolly.  Even when the weather is all chilly slash freezing (literally), it just feels like a cold front. And, watching Christmas films just feels out of season when watching them solo… not like it’s Christmastime.

I guess I never fully realized how much Christmas is a shared event. It has never felt so non-Christmas-y, than it has here, in a world where Christ has no role, general jollity, candy canes, and mistletoe are nonexistent, and family and friends are far away.
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Heart-ing Accents

I love accents.

Tonight, walking home from an incredible sprint to the train station, which was through the ridiculously cold weather (causing my throat, all the way down into my chest, to burn most of the way back home), in order for a friend to catch the last train home for the night, I called up a different friend of mine, just to check in and say a ten-minute “Hello.”

Now, I don’t have many acquaintances who are Australian, and I see and speak with them rather rarely.  So, whenever I talk with this particular friend, who, naturally, is Australian, I am delighted with the mini surprises the accent provides me in conversation.  I am accustomed to the British and Canadian and US English accents, and even the New Zealander accent.  But that Australian one just drives me so goofy (Yes, I realize that is not a standard phrase, but let’s roll with it, shall we?  Yes, let’s.), I get a rush of joy and giggles when it pops out, differentiating itself from the other accents to which I am accustomed.

I’m not sure how this love for accents developed, but I have a hunch it was in our societal view of foreign accents.  For some reason, it is always the foreigner who is exotic and desirable above all others in a TV show or movie, or even book.  Sure, they are different from our everyday, but they are just like loads of other people in their own home countries.  (You know, this really doesn’t make much sense, where I have this heading…)  So, yes, they are different and thereby exotic when they are here, and not when they are back in their home countries.  But why must they be so portrayed as desirable, sexy?  How did that get decided, I wonder?  Just a wondering, I have…

Anyway, the point of all of this was that my friend has an Australian accent, which is a new thing for me (my first full-time Australian friend, you see), and it always surprises me when things end up being pronounced a different way than I had subconsciously expected, and it makes me smile and giggle with delight every time.  So, thank you, God, for the cuteness and wonderfulness of various accents in our world.  🙂

 

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Gumbo is a family affair

Tomorrow, I get to make my first attempt at Gumbo.  I am thrilled, and totally terrified.  😛

I asked my mom for the recipe, so that I could make it for Christmas for Japanese friends, in order to share a bit of my culture with them (Even though it’s definitely not a standard Christmas dinner for Texans, it’s my family’s Christmas dinner pretty much every year.), and also to feel at home a bit for the holiday.

Now, my mom couldn’t just send me the recipe.  Why?  She said that she would have to tell it to me.  “Really?  It’s not written down somewhere?” I thought.  Well, apparently it is possibly written somewhere, however, my mom doesn’t use it.  She uses the recipe her mother has used for the past however many decades, which is probably just about the same as her mother used.  How cool is that?  Family tradition that’s extra-especial.  We have a family recipe.  Well, sort of, anyway.  😛

Now I just have to get it right, and then remember it forever, so that I can continue the tradition of delicious Gumbo in our family.

 

P.S.  “Loser’s Gumbo” is a fabulous song by Shake Russel and Michael Hearne.  Find it.  Listen to it.  Laugh at it.  Enjoy it forever.  🙂

 

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Perfection in the Unexpected

Tonight I went to a bar.  (For me, that’s actually a somewhat surprising event, for those who don’t already know this.)  A recent friend just started working there, and invited me to come by on her first(?) night, tonight.  I figured it would be nice to see the friend, as well as get to know a little place in my town (and, by going early, I could potentially avoid smokers filling the place).

In preparing to go to the bar, I figured I would bring along this speech I just wrote (like yesterday), so that I could spend my time practicing the speech, whenever the friend was busy working.  Plus, I knew there’d be a slight chance of getting a local to help me with the speech (because it’s in Japanese, so I can use the help!).

What I was not prepared to have happen, was pretty much everything that happened.

The bar was quaint and cool, and had an art gallery as half of its space, along with fabulous music playing quietly in the background, such that it was never a bother.  The people were not only friendly, but American-like in their open conversations and friendliness with one another – it was as though they were all already friends, although they definitely were not.  Following that style of friendliness, they all rather quickly learned of this speech I was reading over, as well as the details of the competition, and when I have to do what, and the fact that I decided to participate only last night.

As I was preparing to leave, and the people nearest me were wishing me luck on my practice, someone suggested I come back and read the finished product.  We all agreed that it was a good idea.  Then someone else suggested reading the speech now for practice. Seeing as how I had hardly practiced reading it, I knew it would take forever, and said so.

Thirty seconds later, silence was attained throughout the bar, and I read the first section of my speech to my avid audience of these Japanese bar-dwellers.  I messed up.  Of course, I did.  And it was fabulous.

It was totally terrifying, and I did it anyway, and I even did a decent job.  Some of it was perfect, and some of it was not even close to perfect.  But the experience, in and of itself, was absolutely perfect.  (Even though there was a guy smoking off and on…, but he, being the wonderful smoker he is, always held his cigarette high, and blew his smoke up as high as possible, to keep it out of our faces.)  And that’s the point of it all, anyway.  Once I arrived home, I even got to chat with a friend I’ve been missing lately, and that was a blast…  Perfection has been attained tonight, so now I shall sleep.  Goodnight!  😀

 

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Henna, Henna, & Hannah

Today, I shared henna with a Japanese girlfriend of mine.  She thoroughly enjoyed it, as did I.  We drew on one another (well, she wrote a Kanji on me, which, being a sort of picture, I think can count in the drawing spectrum), and had a delightful time just sitting around until it all dried, and we could go get marshmallows and chocolate to make our s’mores (to have with our mulled/spiced wine).

Now, what do I find delightfully comical about this?  Neither of us commented (and I didn’t even notice until just now) on the name of it.  Henna, a word which, to me in English, means fabulous dried, crushed, and paste-made leaves for hair and skin coloring use.  However, in my almost-daily life now, I use the word henna, a Japanese word that means “strange”.  So this strange, new paste stuff, henna, which Hannah has brought to share, is suitably named.  😀

Kind of henna, huh?

 

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