A whole slew of exciting things

What is so exciting about this post, you may ask?

It is my 200th published one!
Also I turned old today.
But that is besides the point!

As a... present to myself, I'd like to ask you all a favor.

Ask me a question.

Really, truly, anything. 

Something silly, something serious, truly, I want to hear (read?) whatever it is that you have to say.

I often tell people that I have no secrets, and with that being said, I will answer your questions as honestly and in the very best way possible.

Thanks everyone! Loves!

Thoughts from Devotional

"I have yet to find a verse written that says, 'Thou shalt be mediocre.'"

This was said at a devotional last week. Everyone laughed as the speaker continued with his talk, but I just couldn't stop thinking about it. 

There is so much truth spoken in this simple sentence. How often do we sell ourselves short. And more importantly, why?

I was thinking about this the other day. Thinking of how, essentially, we are all programmed the same. Yes, we all have our unique consciousness, but we all have two arms, two legs, and we all have a brain composed of different loves and synapses.

Some are shy, but the potential to be out going is there. They can be outgoing, but it just isn't a dominate trait, and they choose not to exercise it or act that way.

I hate people who say, "Oh, I could never wear that." "Oh I can't do that." It's ridiculous! Each of us can do, can be whatever we want. It's just a matter of want. It's a matter of wanting to do that thing.

Exercise those things you want to grow and they will grow more than you ever thought.

"Have you lived your vision?"

My vision is me being a missionary. Working as a nurse. Married happily to someone who loves this gospel as much as he loves me. I want to be sealed in the temple. I wan to travel the world. I want to act and dance and sing. I want to be in a musical. I want to be a writer. I want to be an EFY counselor. I want to offer myself for humanitarian work. I want to save someone's life. I want to have those days where when you lay in your bed you feel every single ounce of tiredness on your body. But still feeling success in all the tasks that you were able to accomplish that day.

I want to smile.

Attention boys: are you taking notes?

I realize I haven't been here for a while.
Yes, I've been posting, but not quite... writing.
I have so many thoughts to share with you, but for now this beautiful piece I just found will have to suffice.

loves.

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

Because this can always bring a smile to my face

Beautiful things

This one is stolen from Lauren

"If there is no God, then God is incalculably the greatest single creation of the human imagination. No other creation creation of the imagination has been so fertile of ideas, so great an inspiration to philosophy  to literature, to painting sculpture, architecture, and drama. Set beside the idea of God, the most original inventions of mathematicians and the most unforgettable characters in drama are minor products of the imagination: Hamlet and the square root of minus one pale into insignificance by comparison."

-Anthony Kenny

From lovely Lydia

“So many words ge

t lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days, you can hear their chorus rushing past: IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon’tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglass-I’veneverlovedanyoneIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgiveme….

There was a time when it wasn’t uncommon to use a piece of string to guide words that otherwise might falter on the way to their destinations. Shy people carried a little bunch of string in their pockets, but people considered loudmouths had no less need for it, since those used to being overheard by everyone were often at a loss for how to make themselves heard by someone. The physical distance between two people using a string was often small; sometimes the smaller the distance, the greater the need for the string.

The practice of attaching cups to the ends of string came much later. Some say it is related to the irrepressible urge to press shells to our ears, to hear the still-surviving echo of the world’s first expression. Others say it was started by a man who held the end of a string that was unraveled across the ocean by a girl who left for America.

When the world grew bigger, and there wasn’t enough string to keep the things people wanted to say from disappearing into the vastness, the telephone was invented.

Sometimes no length of string is long enough to say the thing that needs to be said. In such cases all the string can do, in whatever its form, is conduct a person’s silence" (Nicole Krauss).

A collection of sporadic thoughts and pictures

"Aubrey! How is Hawaii? How come you haven't updated your blog? I want to hear all about your adventures!"

I feel like I've repeated all my stories at least 7 times, so instead we will have the things in my head.
Enjoy. Or try to at least :)

Tristan and I... "paying attention" during New Student Orientation

I'm officially in Hawaii. 

It's funny, how much you learn about yourself once you are completely on your own.

For example: I like having everything in an organized place. The only thing that bothers me about the dorm (so far) is the fact that my cabinet is just two huge shelves, and not anything to really separate my stuff. So I just have little piles, of books, lip gloss, and toiletries.

And this sounds crazy cliche, but more about who I am. Like today after church I was talking to some people and someone said, "Wow, you are just super optimistic." Then another girl said, "Yeah! She's just a big ball of sunshine!" "Oh, that's the perfect way to describe you Aubrey! A great big ball of sunshine!"

I mean, I always had people say I was happy, and enthusiastic, and friendly, but I think in those social situations I was just more aware of it and trying to be like that. But in this situation I was just invested in getting to know people, and that is just how I came across. I realized that that is me! That is my personality and you know, I love it. I love me.

New hikes with new friends Sierra and Celeste

I have always thought that the song, "The Gambler" by fun. was the most romantic love song. Ever.

And ever since hearing it, especially when I'm listening to it alone engrossed in my thoughts, I've always wanted someone to kiss me on the eye.

At a waterfall in a natural pool after our exhausting 4 hour hike

Have you ever seen that episode of Sponge Bob (stop it. I realize I'm referencing Sponge Bob, but stay with me here) where Squidward decides to move out of Bikini Bottom? He finally does, into a gated community where there are only squids and everyone lives in the same house. At first he thinks its so handy dandy because there's no Sponge Bob and Patrick to bug him. And they have bread in a can and he gets to play his oboe. But then, slowly he realizes that everything isn't as picture perfect at it seems, and soon the monotony wears on him and he just wants his old life back.

I just wonder if I'm going to be like that. Everything seems so perfect and wonderful. I live by a beach. A girl in my dorm offered to teach yoga literally right outside my door in the mornings for two bucks and she teaches at Turtle Bay for a heck of a lot more. I had a job interview for a MA position and cannot possibly contain my excitement. Right now, it is most definitely my dream job and I want it so bad. But is it gonna wear on me? Am I going to get sick of the beach?

I guess the most I can do right now is just wait and see :

This would have been a picture of us at the beach, but my camera is MIA, so instead this is Jen and I enjoying class  :)

But really, truly, honestly, I love everything about this place. I love going to the cafeteria, and ask the Asians what they are eating because they are so clever with their food combinations and make the healthiest and yummiest things (sandwich with hummus, cucumbers, and tomatoes, check). I love opening every single class with a prayer. I love walking to class and it randomly raining. I love the beautiful spirit here and that the holy ghost is truly with me every minute. I love going to the caf and staying there for two hours because I've just been there talking with whomever I decided to sit by that day. I love the diversity of everything. I love eating breakfast with a Tahitian  learning psychology from a Tongan, trading notes with a Venezuelan, getting lunch with a Trinidadian, then watching Hot Rod with an Australian.

Beaches, hikes, and beautiful scenery aside, I love this place, so much.

We couldn't find any cups for our smoothies, so we put them in wine glasses.

Sometimes

-I told Matthew that I hated it when people say I'm sorry in certain situations. Such as, "I didn't get enough sleep last night." The person who is appologizing had nothing to do with your lack of sleep, but shouldn't there be a socially acceptable response instead of this? Wise Matthew simply paused, then said, "Maybe they're sorry that they can't do anything to help, when they really really want to." Sometimes I love that kid.
-I get headaches
-I would wear dresses everyday if I could
-I call someone to ask them a simple question, and end up chatting for at least 30 minutes. I love unexpected conversations the very best.
-I have to re-read this because it's easy to forget.
-My favorite place to walk along the beach is right where the water meets the shore. I love the feeling of the water coming up at your feet and washing away any imprint you left in the sand.