winter break

Today I got a postcard from my friend in Taiwan. I know she reads my blog so instead of responding to her via postcard/facebook, let me just say now: I miss you, I hope you have great stories about adjusting to Taiwanese culture, and I'll see you soon! Unfortunately my break doesn't have any interesting stories...in fact, I can pretty quickly give you a detailed account of my entire break!

• Returned home, slept, ate, watched Lost
• Went to Maggie's grad party!
• An entire week of sleeping, eating and watching a variety of things including the Mission Impossibles (1-4) and Friends...and more Lost
• Christmas!
• Used new kitchen torch to slightly burn delicacies
• Rediscovered my gameboy, defeated Brock using only Charmander, felt victorious
• Went to New York to half-sleep, eat and watch the ball drop
• Went to Corinne's house and hung out, volunteered, met the cutest 3-4 year old kids ever, read, decorated a detailed gingerbread house, etc.
• Came home, slept, ate, watched Lost and Portlandia and reintroduced reading to my life

Also, I've actually been reading and praying and hanging out with my family, so even though I've been bumming around...it's slightly productive bumming.

In summary, I like break but I miss school - a typical W&M sentiment, I assume. :)

the oscars

Oscar season is finally about to be upon us. This is a big deal to me, not because I really care whose dress Anne Hathaway is wearing or because I really need to know which movies the entertainment industry deems the best of the year - it's a big deal because it's always been a big deal. Like normal families and sports, my family gravitates toward entertainment news. We read Entertainment Weekly, we disagree with Ann Hornaday's always negative reviews in the Post, we watch trailers when they come out and you'd better believe that we watch every bit of bonus material on every DVD that comes our way. I don't mean that I care if someone's engaged or pregnant or supposedly cheating - but I do care if one of my favorite directors is in the talks to produce an adaptation of some book!

It probably started with Lord of the Rings, so let's travel back to 2001. We didn't have cable, Cartoon Network, etc. so we grew up on classics - some Bugs Bunny, Veggie Tales, sure, but also Star Wars, The African Queen, The Court Jester. We had this big book of movie reviews, and if something got 3-4 stars my mom would consider getting the VHS at a used book store (if it got less than 3 stars, then fat chance ever seeing that movie!). We accumulated hundreds of VHS tapes over the years.

But then in 2001 we saw Lord of the Rings. We were obviously obsessed. It was the first DVD we ever got (Christmas 2002) and after seeing the extended edition and watching hours of "making of" material of all three movies, it would be foolish of you to think that we agreed with the Academy's decisions to snub the first two of their deserved accolades (because purportedly, best sound editing does not equal best picture). So for the 2004 Academy Awards, my family was ready for some payoff, and we were quite pleased with the results (11/11 wins for Return of the King). Ever since then, I have been emotionally invested in the Oscars beyond reason - even when I hadn't seen any of the nominated films, I had definite opinions about who should have won. Of course, if a movie I've seen produces a Best Actor win, I feel some sort of victory (it's like I picked the best performance to watch!).

So now I do my best to see the best movies of the year so that I can make my predictions and then feel fantastic when my picks win and angry when they don't. It's kind of silly, but it's what I do. Two weeks to nominations!!

nyc

I'm at the point in my life where everywhere is a potential future home. I am constantly weighing the pros and cons of an apartment, a brick house, a picket fence, a suburb, a commute, a city, a small town - wherever I am, I am making up a new rule for my life. Some of the rules I have drafted:

• For the majority of my life, eggs need to be less than 5 minutes away from me (including bundling up and traveling to the store and shopping and paying - I need to be back to my kitchen within 5 minutes). I find it so inconvenient when I am baking and then in the middle of mixing realize I'm out of an ingredient! So this technically rules in both cities and farms.
• At some point I would like to live in a brick building (that is not a dorm).
• If I own a house it is going to get a silly color somewhere on the outside. Brown houses are so boring! Why not have a blue roof?
• I need to live at least a year in a place where I can travel completely car-free to everywhere I need to go.

Anyway, I was thinking about some of these things when I was in New York for New Year's Eve, and I think I've concluded that I like visiting the city but I don't want to live there. I would, however, still like to live in a slightly less busy/touristy/hectic city for a while.

But more importantly, I was in New York for NYE! I made some new friends, ate some classic NY food, saw fireworks, balloons and the ball drop, stayed up all night - oh yeah and spent the late morning sleeping/freezing on the chilly floor of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and I can now personally attest to the fact that it is the busiest bus station in the world. Nbd. I did not see JB but I almost saw Hugh Jackman? Also I am even more convinced that I will never finish the SA's little instructions for life at W&M, because there is no way I will ever be able to pull off an all-nighter, seeing as my body almost literally shuts down after like 23 hours awake. Also I will never have the patience or time (or interest) to become a sixth man.

all I want

Today I wrapped about a dozen presents. This came with its own set of challenges: first, I am a perfectionist so no present will ever be perfectly wrapped. It is terrible. Second, I am always afraid when I cut wrapping paper because I was trained from a young age to be careful about what was beneath the paper. So sometimes I fear cutting a bedspread and sometimes I fear cutting the actual present...in either case, I am very afraid. Third, there were a bunch of green beans hanging out next to the impromptu present-wrapping station in the garage, and I kind of had to battle them for space. Fourth, I have to pick papers and stickers that go together and make sense for the person and the present and this can be difficult to continue to care about after like five presents...too many decisions.

Anyway, I know none of the presents that I give will make anyone exceedingly joyous - nor will those that I receive grant me lasting contentment. (I think everyone, at some point, accepts this fact.) But even being with family, upholding traditions (like eating Belgian waffles tomorrow, yum!), hanging out with my friends at home, getting my final grades - things that are all good and that are way more important than getting a nice new sweater - all of these are temporary fixes to my constant need for happiness. There's only one thing that can make me truly happy - forever, without any concerns. And that's being in a relationship with God. And there's only one way to do that - through Jesus. Tomorrow is the day that we choose to publicly remember his birth, and that's ok with me. It's ok with me that it's one day out of the year and it's ok with me that he probably wasn't born on December 25th. I shouldn't strive to "remember" him every day because I believe he's alive every day; I don't strive to remember the birth of my friends every day, but I am grateful that they exist and that they want to listen to me even when I'm being really silly. While his birth was the biggest deal that ever went down in human history up until that point (I would say his resurrection blew that record out of the water), he wasn't born so that we could celebrate his birthday: he was born to die, he was born to reconcile us to God.

All I want - not just for Christmas, but forever - is to have a deeper relationship with God. I want my selfish spirit to become selfless. I want to be like Christ. To quote St. Ignatius of Antioch, an early martyr, in his letter to the Roman church:

Come fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the Devil--Only let me get to Jesus Christ!

In today's terms, come persecution, temptation, injustice, ridicule, losing friends, pain, death - it doesn't matter, because nothing can separate me from Jesus! That God chose to experience all of the pain of the human condition so that I might intimately know him is incredible. So I'm celebrating his existence, his decision, his love...and that's all that I need. I won't complain about the copious amounts of Christmas cookies in my house, though. :)

where do I live?

When someone asks me where I live, I have a number of responses depending on the context of our conversation and level of familiarity. But usually the answer is that I live in Stith (the building) and/or that I live with Abby. Of course I also live at my home with my family, but that's really talking about where I'm from.

But when I think about living in a building or even a room, it's kind of silly. I sleep in Stith and during finals I study in Stith but most of the things which I would consider living - hanging out and talking and eating and learning and worshiping and driving down Richmond Road at a heart-pounding 26 miles per hour and shopping and planning and running around and other things - all of those things, I do outside of Stith. So I really live in Williamsburg and mostly I live on the campus of William and Mary because that's where my life is happening.

Sometimes even this isn't true. Sometimes I spend my time on campus or in Stith or at home in nova and that's still not where I live. Sometimes I actually feel like I live in a number of other places, including but not limited to: Hogwarts (but actually), the internet, my head, the past, a land where all that matters is my ability to form the projection of a vector onto a column space, Katie's room, a real-life board game, Kanto, the set of a movie that's starring me, Morton, and my bed.

I don't think that any of those are very healthy places to live and I certainly think that we were created to live in the present (while still being able to learn from and analyze and plan for the past and future). So should I live in Stith or should I just live? I don't think it's really "just living" because I think it's actually kind of a big deal to be alive and to exist as I am. I don't think for a single day that this is all that matters: that my grades and what I wear and what people think of me define me or give me worth. Living purposefully and passionately requires me to live and not just exist and it requires me to live in the present and it requires me to live a life of love. Where I reside or happen to sleep should actually be the least of my concerns when I think about how I will live in the future: the question should not be where but in what manner and to what end?

Food for thought for future Marisa: where I live senior year is about as nbd as it gets. And where I live and what I do career-wise after that is similarly inconsequential given that I'm doing it for the right reasons and with the right attitude. This will be hard to accept when that time comes but it will not be any less true.

finals

things which have been substituted for meals:

• cupcake
• reindeer chow
• peanut m&m's
• red machine naked

things that have recently become super active:

• apo family on facebook
• overheard at william and mary
• my tumblr
• words with friends

things that now live in my bed:

• my laptop
• me
• my water bottle
• everything important

things I have watched since classes ended (five days ago):

• Love Actually
• Friends
• The Office
• Glee
• New Girl
• How I Met Your Mother

things I have accomplished this week:

• skimmed the readings I was supposed to do throughout October and November
• finished an exam in 70 minutes
• discovered new music on spotify
• beat Abby in words with friends....four times

resting

I've been thinking a lot about resting recently, probably because free time has become very scarce in my life lately. When I have time and nothing to do, my traditional approach to rest is threefold: getting on facebook until it bores me, watching tv until I've caught up on everything and then taking a nap until I have to do other things.

But I don't think that these are very restful at all. And I don't think that they're all that's meant for me. I think I'm meant for a satisfying kind of rest - one that doesn't just fill me up provisionally and one that isn't limited to a block of 2.5 hours between class and dinner.

I used to think that all that the Bible had to say about rest was this: take one day a week (the Sabbath) and be restful. Just don't do anything on that one day and then you'll be set for the week. I learned as I grew up that it didn't mean do literally nothing - but to take a break from work/toil. So to me that looked like taking a break from homework and going to church to worship God.

But God has a lot more to say about rest. Because I have a paper due tomorrow I won't go through instances where the Bible specifically talks about it, but it's an important topic that does get a lot of attention throughout the scriptures. Resting isn't doing nothing - it's doing something other than our usual schedule of work - it's fellowship, appreciating art, acknowledging the beauty of creation and the Creator. But even when I'm held to my strict/hectic/ridiculous schedule, there's another kind of rest that I can enjoy: resting in my identity in Christ. Resting in who I am and how that's not dependent on how I mess up. Resting in the fact that there is a plan for me and that my worrying about the future has no effect on it, so I might as well quit my complaints and start appreciating the journey. Resting assured, if you will.

So even though I'm not getting to sleep when I want to sleep or to catch up on Glee right away, and even though I have a lot of work ahead of me for finals, and even though I'm not sure what I'll be doing to make myself feel productive once winter break hits, I'm feeling pretty restful. Cool.