Optimism Beats Pessimism Every Time

So here's a bummer for the day:

I went to the grocery store today and bought myself a bag of air, but when I opened it there were chips inside! I hate when they put chips in my bag of air.  It's irritating.

Ok ok here's the real bummer for the day:

I didn't get the scholarship to go to Italy in the spring. Sad, sad day.  BUT I am starting a new application for a different scholarship and am looking into doing an internship program in Italy in the spring, instead of the intensive language program the first scholarship was for.  SO, things are already looking up, and in the meantime I need to focus focus focus on finals.

Because after finals. . .  it's CHRISTMAS!

I bet you didn't already get this from my other recent blog posts, but I LOVE CHRISTMASTIME! and I am incredibly excited to be going home and spending this festive time with my family. 

Three weeks of holiday greatness, baby! Yeah!

That is all for today. I have a lot of work to do.

The sunshine is coming!

<3 Mel  

Dreaming of a Not-So-White Christmas

I wanted to write something clever today, perhaps something inspiring or important.  But all I can think to say is that I'm excited.

I am so excited.  This time of year is my favorite.  But you have finals and projects and hard things! you might say.  Yes, I do! I'll tell you why I'm excited about it.

I love the last week of classes and finals week. I'm finishing all the hard work I put in throughout the semester, I have established new friendships in my classes, I am nearing a new beginning, and it's Christmastime! I love that we work hard for a solid week and then feel an enormous release of tension as soon as our last test is concluded.  A three-week break with absolutely nothing to do! We can't have homework because we don't have classes! I can be completely free for three weeks.  I do not mind at all working hard and studying intensely for one week when that is my promised reward.

Not only am I free for three weeks, but I also get to go home! I get to return to San Diego and see my family, and spend all of my time with them. I get to participate in our Christmas traditions and go on a trip (this year we're going to San Francisco!), and fully enjoy the spirit of Christmas, without worry or stress.

Can you think of a better present?  I sure can't.

One tough week is so worth it.  And that's why I'm excited.

The sunshine is coming soon!

<3 Mel

More Lights, Camera, Christmastime!

More Christmas traditions I can't go without:

- We have a family Christmas party the Saturday before Christmas.  It is an enormous party, with my mom's entire extended family, mostly from her dad's side. We rent out the Boys and Girls Club building in Imperial Beach, CA, which isn't difficult considering my grandpa's name is on the building.  It is the J. D. Webb Boys and Girls Club.  He built it, through his construction company — he's really quite famous down in IB. Anyway, we rent out that building and everyone comes from all over Southern California. My mom's uncle and his family come from Arizona. We always have Mexican food — burritos, tacos, tamales, enchiladas — and lots of desserts.  Everyone brings something, or two or three things.  It is an incredible feast that I would never miss for the world. We all dress up really nicely, too.  (When we were young, our Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa were brand-new outfits for the Christmas party, so we got to open them early! That was awesome. Then we grew up and decided we could pick out our own clothes. . . you know how it is.) We pray before the meal and then everyone lines up in a buffet line and gets heaping plates of food.  We chat, laugh, enjoy each others' company and catching up with people we haven't seen since the Fourth of July (when we have our other enormous family party). My grandparents hire a DJ —because we're a family that knows how to party. Everyone gets out on the dance floor and we dance, eat, dance, and eat some more for hours. The only part my siblings, cousins, and I don't like is the cleanup.  This is one of my favorite nights.

- We spend Christmas day as a family.  We get up when Madelyn can't wait any longer. Somehow she always gets up early and then goes from room to room waking everyone else.  We aren't allowed to even think of getting up until after 7am, which has been moved to 7:30 in recent years.  But Madelyn is always the one to wake all of us. We go brush our teeth and make ourselves as presentable as possible (since we are all still in our pj's without makeup. . . a near tragedy for a house full of girls) and pose at the top of the stairs for a picture.  Madelyn always makes sure to capture the cat and hold his squirming, meowing body during the picture. Then we rush downstairs and converge on our Christmas tree, pulling out presents and handing them to their recipients. After all the presents are open and everyone has given hugs and 'thank yous' and 'you're welcomes' we have a big breakfast together. Sometimes Jerry makes waffles or pancakes and other times Mom makes her special homemade crème brulée French toast. We usually have sausage and eggs with our breakfast. Jerry makes our eggs special order — I get scrambled with cheese, Madelyn gets over-easy, Brooke gets over-medium, etc. We have a wonderful breakfast and wonderful day, listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies. This is one of my favorite days.

Christmastime, it's here!

<3 Mel

Lights, Camera, Christmastime!

Happy, joyous December 1st to everyone!

Christmastime is here.  I cannot believe it.  FOUR MORE classes this semester.

Christmas is my favorite time of year.  My family has so many traditions that I truly treasure.  Here are a few:

- We get our tree from the lot in front of Home Depot.  We spend a lot of time picking the very best one.  Then we tie it to the roof of the car and take it home. Jerry sets it up in its stand on the tiled corner of the family room, puts water in it, and covers the stand with a nice red tree skirt.  A Christmas CD plays on the computer.  First, Mom and Jerry string colored lights through the branches, distributing them evenly, carefully.  Then, each of us plunges into the four boxes of ornaments and begins placing them strategically on the tree's limbs.  Brooke, Madelyn, and I put what we consider the "ugly" ones on the back of the tree, where they can't be seen.  This is one of my favorite nights.

- We go see the Holiday of Lights display at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.  Enormous structures of lights surround the racetrack, and the cars drive around the track, experiencing them all.  Back when Jerry had his old Chevy truck, he would bring it home the day we were going to Holiday of Lights.  First, we would go to the Starbucks in Del Mar, always the same one, and get hot chocolates.  Then we would drive to the fairgrounds and wait in the long line of cars to get in.  Once we made it to the front and paid, we would enter the Holiday of Lights.  Quickly, Jerry would put the truck in park and all of us kids would jump out of the cab and climb into the pickup bed, where we had laid out blankets to sit on.  Jerry would start driving again, as we sat in the bed—sipping hot chocolate, feeling the cool breeze, watching the incredible light displays, laughing together.  (Nowadays we do everything the same, except for the truck which we no longer have.  We have to enjoy our hot cocoa and the lights from inside our SUV). This is one of my favorite nights.

More traditions to come. . .

<3 Mel

Heritage

I've realized why I am having so much trouble blogging.  My personal history project is a blog, so I can't ever remember if I blogged on this blog or not, because I am blogging every day.  It's a problem.

Anyway.

Today I finished revising my oral history interview project for class, and I was reflecting on the day just over a week ago that I interviewed my grandpa.

Never have I been more excited to fulfill an assignment.  It was a beautiful day, it was rewarding, and it was just plain fun.  On a sunny California day, two days before Thanksgiving, my mom and I drove down to Coronado to talk to my grandparents (her parents).  I wanted to interview Grandpa for my writing assignment and Mom wanted to work on family history with Grandma.

Grandpa and I

As we drove the 35 minutes or so to Coronado, I asked Mom what period of Grandpa's life I should ask him about.  We talked about her childhood and all the amazing things he accomplished, and decided that the 1970s would be a great time period to interview him about.  It was just the two of us, my mom and I, and it was wonderful.  It was great to be open with her and hear details of her life that I had never heard before.  When we got to my grandparents' house, the greatness and the inspiration kept flowing easily.  I learned so much about Grandpa that I never even thought to ask all my life.  Through the interview, I saw him as a father, husband, and provider for his family, whereas to me he had always always been a retired grandfather who walks with difficulty because of an accident he had in the late 80s.  I never really considered thinking of him as a spry, healthy young man with three little daughters and a major construction company.  I was fascinated, enthralled.

During our hour-long interview, my mom and Grandma were in a separate room going through records and old newspapers and websites, trying to piece together more family history.  Genealogy is a project they have both been working diligently on for a long while now.  So much precious history was going on in that house that day.  I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for my writing assignment, for the health of my grandparents, for the ability to record history and to go back through those records in the future.  There was an amazing spirit there.

Grandma and Grandpa
"First Dance"
50th Wedding Anniversary

On our drive home, my mom and I talked about Grandpa's answers to my questions and ended up in a fabulous conversation about 1970s politics.  It was lengthy and surprisingly intense.  Then I asked about her experience with Grandma that afternoon.  "It's amazing to think," she said, "that we can touch history.  The censuses that Grandma and I were going through were from 1910 and 1920.  Someone held those papers in 1910, they wrote with their pens on those papers.  It's incredible."

History means everything to me.  I want to work as an archivist because I want to touch history every day.  I want to feel a closeness to people who have long past.  I want to recognize that the documents stored in archives are not pieces of paper, but have stories behind them.  Someone, somewhere, took the time to write whatever is on those papers.  Someone, somewhere, with a story of their own.

History is remarkable.  There is nothing I have ever been more passionate about.  There is nothing quite like it.

This is my sunshine.  This is what gets me through cloudy days.

<3 Mel
  

1960s Spiel

Side note before my spiel begins: Today I got a package in the mail.  It was from my mom.  In it was a brand-new set of bath towels.  Brand-new bath towels, of the Vera Wang variety.  Yes, I do now own Vera Wang towels.  And they are glorious.  If I ever chance to meet Vera, the first thing I will do is thank her for producing such luxurious bath towels.  Honestly, they are the most delightful things.

The reason I got brand-new Vera Wang bath towels is because I asked for new towels for Christmas.  My $2 ones from Walmart have become threadbare.  I was so excited to open them Christmas morning.  But SURPRISE! Early Christmas for me!!

. . . What has college life done to me?  The other day I was raving about my apartment's new microwave, and now these towels. . . College changes a person.  It really does.  Honest.

And now for my spiel:

I love The Beatles.  Love. Them.  Their music, their hair, their culture, their insanity, all of it.  LOVE.  I have three Beatles t-shirts, a Beatles blanket, various Beatles paraphernalia, etc. etc.

So I got a new Beatles t-shirt.  I was quite fond of it.  I wore it to my U.S. History 1945-2000 class.  We happened to be studying the 1960s that day.  Awesome.  So I settled into my extremely small and incredibly uncomfortable desk and awaited the PowerPoint lecture for the day.

So along rolled the '60s — civil rights, 'freedom' rights, Vietnam, drugs, etc. etc. — and suddenly we arrived at the British invasion, and there were my boys.  Paul, John, Ringo, and George.  With their floppy hair and exquisite accents.  Love, I tell you.

The teacher lectured on and on, and we watched various video clips of the Beatles and how the British invasion affected American culture — everyone wanted the Beatles haircut, everyone wanted to go to their concerts, everyone wanted Paul to fall in love with them, etc. etc.  We also watched as they joined (led?) the drug culture.

At this point, amidst video clips of a completely stoned/high crowd watched the completely stoned/high Beatles play their music, the kid sitting next to me in my history class turned around, glanced at my shirt, then glared.  His piercing eyes scolded me very loudly.
"Do you realize what you are supporting? Do you realize that those people on your shirt did DRUGS? Do ya? Do ya?" 

YES, kid in my history class whom I have never spoken to.  I DO UNDERSTAND that the Beatles did drugs, and that they probably did a lot of other bad things, and they were BRITISH for goodness sake.  But you know what? They made darn good music while they were doing it! You're just JEALOUS!

Sorry.  I'm done now.

(I also love all other 1960s music, especially Motown. The Temptations. I've got sunshiiiiinneee, on a cloudy day.  When it's cold outsiiidddee, I've got the month of May.  You can't beat that.  You just can't.  That is all.)

<3 Mel

Catch CCR and Put 'Em in Your Pocket

Wo is me! I am a terrible person.  Particularly a blogger-person. It's been a whole week! Honestly, I don't know why it's so hard for me to keep up with this.

Moving on.

Yesterday I was walking on campus toward my first class for the day.  I was strolling along, laden down with heavy books (as always), earbuds in my ears playing awesome oldies songs.  As I walked I began recognizing that I was attracting the attention of many people around me.  They were not happily acknowledging my existence but rather were staring incredulously, as if I were incredibly stupid for some reason or another.  I couldn't understand it.  Was it because the buckles on my boots jingled when I walked?  I admit they made a slightly irritating *clink clink* noise with every step.  No, that probably wasn't it.  OH NO, was I not wearing pants? Nope, my jeans snuggly covered my lower body.  I definitely had a shirt on, since I was bundled up against the winter chill that after nearly three years I am still unaccustomed to.  What was it then?  I turned my music up louder and lowered my head.  That was when I noticed.  My earbuds were in my ears, all right.  But they weren't attached to the device that was playing the music.  Creedence Clearwater was blasting out of my coat pocket.  And everyone was staring.

I was thrown into wakefulness by the horrendous musical chimes of my alarm clock.  Seriously, no matter which tune I choose for my alarm, it is always annoying.  Always.  I think it's impossible to wake up gently from an alarm.  The only way is to wake up when you just can't sleep any longer.  That's the way it should be.  Moving on. . . I was very very happy to realize I had been dreaming.  Honestly, a girl can only take so much embarrassment in her life.  I certainly couldn't handle this story if it were true.  I have plenty of true stories to make up for it, though, believe me.

<3 Mel