Elder Ballard and the Oak Tree

Tonight at the CES fireside, Elder Ballard read a poem that really reminded me of this. The poem made me remember just how wonderful my English summer was. Here it is:

At home or abroad, on the land or the sea...
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

A mighty wind blew night and day
It stole the oak tree's leaves away
Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark
Until the oak was tired and stark

But still the oak tree held its ground
While other trees fell all around
The weary wind gave up and spoke.
How can you still be standing Oak?

The oak tree said, I know that you
Can break each branch of mine in two
Carry every leaf away
Shake my limbs, and make me sway

But I have roots stretched in the earth
Growing stronger since my birth
You'll never touch them, for you see
They are the deepest part of me

Until today, I wasn't sure
Of just how much I could endure
But now I've found, with thanks to you,
I'm stronger than I ever knew.

Threes

Remember how I visited the other three countries in the UK when I was in England?

From left, Scotland, Wales, Ireland.

1. Three weeks until Allyson comes home!

2. Three hours of working on that blasted non-research research paper until I gave up.

3. Three days of dreary, project-infested school days down this week. Two to go.

(three deep breaths - in, out. in, out. in, out.)

Some great things about the Study Abroad Office:

1. "Hey Kathryn, can you write up some culture scenarios about Ghana and Armenia?"

2. "Hey Kathryn, can you put together a brochure for this new program to GREECE?"

3. Repeat #2, inserting VIENNA, INDIA and CHINA for GREECE.

4. The stars in students' eyes when they turn in an application or post-application materials.

5. Helping a student figure out the best program for him/her.

6. An occasional "Kathryn? I didn't know you worked here! How do you get a cool job like this?!"

7. The little kids who came trick-or-treating around the Union Building. "Oooh - are you Frankenstein's Wife?" "Uh, no. I'm Sally. Duh!" "Oh...yeah....er....Oh! As in Nightmare Before Christmas." Sally's eyes roll.

8. The random questions about events in the Union building that I really don't know the answer to: "Can you tell me where the ___________ meeting is?" "Oh, I really don't know. I'm sorry." "Hm. That's too bad - I wanted some pizza!"

9. Writing up address labels for Denmark, Latvia, France, Spain and Sweden.

10. Opening up Campus Information Systems and having two tabs to choose from: the Employee tab and the Student tab.

11. Table-ing at random fairs at the Union like the Health and Wellness Fair. What does study abroad have to do with your health and wellness? According to my co-worker, Chris, "study abroad is good for the soul."

12. Knowing the behind-the-scenes preparation activities for the Korean Delegation's campus visit.

I love my job so far! Lots to learn, but it's all so great!

228

Oh, the 228. This is the bus that, had I the motivation and green-sense to ride the bus, I would ride from 2700 East up to the University of Utah. When I was riding this bus regularly, I wrote a post about its personality. I just re-read it, and liked it very much. So I'm going to share:

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I've been riding the bus more than I'd like to recently (thank you Allyson). Faithful UTA route 228 has become my ride to and from school quite frequently these days. The bus drivers know me so well, they wave as I go running past them on 2700 East. Ok - maybe they don't know me quite that well. Point: 228 has become my friend.

It really does have characteristics that allow it to be personified, which characeristics are mainly the people who ride it. As I tend to ride the bus at the same times on the same days, I encounter many of the same people.

First, the woman who gets on the bus, looks around, and after finding her favorite seat taken, settles for a different one. Does this stop her from ultimately attaining her favorite seat? Ha! Not her. As people vacate the spots around her favorite seat, she moves towards it gradually until finally she sits down on the bench right next to the door. One stop later, she exits.

Second, the young man who will probably be deaf by the time he's 40. As he listens to his music (with headphones on, mind you) we, his fellow bus riders, all enjoy the pleasure of listening to the words right along with him. I can't even hear my own music over the roar of the freeway as I listen to it with headphones. Impressive output there, bud.

Third, the man whom I call "the narrator". Now, this man obviously has some sort of mental disability. I think this makes things so much more entertaining and great. Bus rides wouldn't be the same with the spontaneuos outbursts of "wow - we're going fast!" and "oh no - we're ahead!" and "oh my stars!" to put a smile on one's face after a long day at school.

Fourth, the woman who wears a pink santa hat all throughout December and January. No worries - it's pink, not red. Totally January appropriate. In fact, Februray would be safe too.

Moral of the story: This bus has personality - one that makes my Mondays and Wednesdays after choir so much better. Not all world resources are impersonal or dull. Some have life and character.

Elevator

Courtesy of David Archuleta:

Elevator goes up
Elevator come down
And you just go with the flow
Until your feet are back on the ground
It's an endless ride
Sometimes it takes you up
Sometimes it tears you down inside
But it's the butterflies
That keep you feeling so alive, so alive
You gotta get back that high.

I found a Rock and planted a tree

I walked along Trumpington Road past King’s College and saw the light of the setting sun through the college wall’s stone windows. I smiled as it hit me for the first time that I was attending Cambridge University. The first weeks had been full of classes, reading articles and textbooks, and getting to know students from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, USC, Brown, and Brigham Young Universities. As the only University of Utah student among groups of students from these other Ivy-League schools, I felt quite unqualified to walk the halls and streets of such a historical, academic place as Cambridge. It became very easy for me to compare myself to these ambitious students and find myself lacking their drive, motivation and study skills. It was in Cambridge that I realized that if I really wanted to improve myself, the only way to do it was to compare myself to myself alone. I recognized that it was good for me to be inspired by the examples of those around me, but I also understood that the most important thing to me should be my individual progression.

I quickly found something non-academic I could improve: my relationship with Jesus Christ. While I was in London and Cambridge this summer on study abroad, I had mixed feelings about home. At first, I longed for the comfortable security I knew home could provide after days of wandering unfamiliar streets and nights of long study hours. Then, a few pieces of disappointing news came from home that made me wonder if home really was a place where I could find security after my 14 weeks in England. Puzzled, I knew that there had to be a place I could depend on to give me comfort. Two things came to mind that I absolutely knew could depend on in any circumstance: me and the Savior. Ideas fell into place as I knelt in my little room on Fitzwilliam Street. I knew that if I could combine the dependability of these two people into one strong force, I could conquer any challenge or discomfort I faced. Words from Helaman 5:12 flashed through my head: “It is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” Here, a prophet gave me the promise that if I pattern my life after the Savior and build my life upon the Atonement and His Gospel, I will have a transportable place of security in the form of myself.

What a wonderful promise! The different stages in my life such as marriage and employment will most likely bring with them new locations and the requirement to send out new roots. But if I unite myself with Christ, there are roots that will never need to be dug up, a relationship that never needs to end, and a foundation that will never crack. In fact, these things can grow even stronger and stronger as I face challenges. I bear my growing testimony of the comfort that comes from trusting in the Lord to be our base of security. He never changes.

Once upon a time...

I could choose to listen to one radio station if I wanted rap and another if I wanted to listen to pop. Nowadays, the two options have been taken away. Welcome to the music style of today - it starts out with a great melody and catchy tune and then goes into a fast-talking section. This latter section, by necessity of course, must be filled with poor grammar. My smile quickly turns into a scowl as the poor grammar falls coarsely on my grammar-trained English major/Editing ears like the bright gray sidewalk in front of the Marriott library rudely blinds eyes on a sunny day (still not sure if that analogy works). The listening populace of the radio station goes down one notch.

Maybe one day I'll learn to appreciate the art of the combined genres. Or maybe I'll just hold out until the next music style comes...opera + country?