Thankful No. 3: Lifelong Learning

Oh man. I looooooove to learn. LOVE it. Like, pretty much my favorite thing on the planet is acquiring knowledge. It's so cool! There are a million things to learn in this world, and it seems like my curiosity is never satiated. Thankfully this "intellectual curiosity" is an asset, from what I've been told, because I can't help it. I look at a boomerang, and I want to know how the aborigines figured that out. What in its shape makes it return? Oh, and I am SUCH a sucker for historical plaques!!! I want to know what significant thing occurred in that location, and I love thinking about how different those people's lives were way back when (like while in Savannah, contemplating yellow fever epidemics and the Civil War).

I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've had as far as education is concerned. As early as first grade, school was my thing. It was where I felt I could achieve and shine, where I could be stretched beyond my comfort zone and excel. That feeling lasted throughout my undergrad and continues today, not only as I pursue my master's degree but also as I learn in my career. It's fun to improve and expand beyond the familiar.

I love, too, how learning is not limited to an educational institution or the quest for a degree. A tour of Utah State campus last month totally renewed my quest to dig and learn more about things beyond my comfort zone, like astronomy and physics, why things are the way they are. My area of expertise is soooo right-brained and centered on humanities, history, arts, language, etc. Math still doesn't hold a draw, but science sure does. Would I ever get a degree in it? Nope. But will I study on my own to learn about the heavens? You betcha!

In Which I Ponder a Ph.D.

"You really should consider comms studies," Dr. Pratte insisted.

All communications majors at BYU were required to take Comms 300: History of Communications, which involved a major research project. For what it was worth, my study of the changing perception of the American family as captured on the cover of TV Guide from the 1950s to the present (2001) caught the soon-to-retire professor's eye. I chalked it up to my being an American Studies major, trained to think outside the box and draw cultural connections. Dr. Pratte saw it as proof of a communications scholar - and from then on, he spent the rest of the semester trying to convince me to follow a research track that would take me into deeper levels of academia. He even had me present my paper at a conference - the only undergrad in the lineup, and a mere sophomore at that.

But there was no practical application for the communications studies emphasis. The only door you had after graduating was more school - and I had noooooo desire to get a master's degree! I just wanted my bachelor's. And my Mrs. Mostly the Mrs., really, but the pragmatist in me was also wise enough to know that whatever I graduated in needed the potential to pay the bills.

The only potential result of comms studies was more bills - so I stuck with print journalism. Which is ironic, really, considering its paltry ability to pay the bills... but that's a discussion for another day. 

Here I sit, a decade later, mulling over that conversation. Maybe Dr. Pratte was onto something. Maybe he saw something in my 19-year-old self that I couldn't see. 

Because now my 29-year-old self, in her first semester of grad school, has a Ph.D.-worthy research project idea that simply won't leave this overextended, already-all-over-the-place brain.

Lately I can't stop thinking about connection - particularly, as one song in the musical Rent puts it, "connection in an isolating age." These days we are more connected than ever before through digital means - and yet, we're more isolated and disconnected from one another. And we, as human beings, are wired for connection. We crave it. We need it to function. And too few of us are getting the quality and quantity needed to nurture our souls.

While the blame could be placed on those electronic means, I argue that the means are amoral tools - they exist not as agents but to be acted upon. They're tools, capable of good and evil. Their morality depends wholly upon their employment - and so, therefore, the burden of responsibility is on the user as well as on the designer of the methods.

I would looooooove nothing more than to delve into the psychology of interpersonal connection, the psychology of the brain's engagement with various electronic platforms, and then look at how those platforms could be altered in a way that fosters true interpersonal connection while mitigating the negative effects inherent in the electronic engagement.

Yes, this is the stuff that keeps me up at night.

But where can I find the time to get into it? And with what application or access? While researching a paper for my Utah State class that's due this week, I ended up downloading well over a dozen journal articles that look at psychology and social media. I want to study and analyze them - but with what time? My plate is so filled to the brim, I basically can only focus on whatever the next burning fire is, whatever deadline's slapping me in the face.

My research will have to wait. I can only juggle so much, and right now my focus is nurturing and building my career. Well, that, and finally attaining my Mrs. - in which case that would become my focus. I don't really see where a Ph.D. fits into the picture. All I can handle for now is slogging through my MS, one class at a time.

But that doesn't mean the idea is going to stop haunting me.

As I've learned (with help from Elizabeth Gilbert's TED presentation), when the Muse strikes, I have little choice but to listen - or to be haunted by knowing that I let a good idea pass by unrealized. That's why I end up blogging not one but two posts in one night when I really need to be writing a paper due the next day - it's like I have to clear those ideas out of the queue in order to move on with my life.

This one, though? There'll be no clearing it out for years, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it presently. But one thing is for certain:

I want a Ph.D.,

which thing I never had supposed.

Bleeding Blue

In high school, I was a:

Then I went off to college to be come a:

And now I'm in grad school as a:

Guess I've got a thing for schools with blue as a color, huh?

Tonight my Cougars square off against the my Aggies. Talk about split loyalties! Either way, my school wins... and either way, my school loses. I'm still a diehard Cougar fan - but when I think of all the money I'm chucking at Utah State for the privilege of being a matriculated scholar on her way to a Masters... well... I'm reticent to smack-talk my own school. So...

Goooooo, Aggies!!!

Goooooo, Cougars!!!

May the best team win tonight!

On Cocoons, Roots and Wings

Photo by nickso

Well, friends, I'm sad to say that I missed my hot date with Errol Flynn tonight. In trying to finish a project at work, I got to the BYU library too late - I wasn't actually late to the screening, but the theater had already filled. Sad day!

Dejectedly, I drowned my sorrows in some Creamery chocolate milk and a mint brownie (of course) - while taking a lovely little nighttime stroll around my alma mater.

Being back around BYU has been a funny experience for me since leaving six years ago. As I've mentioned before, every square inch of that campus is crammed full of some memory for me. "There's the hill where I had a DTR with my First Kiss after he ripped my heart from my chest and did a flamenco on it. It was so rewarding to stand up for myself in that situation!" (For the record, First Kiss and I are still good friends - in hindsight, it wasn't that bad... but at 18, it felt like the WORLD, y'know?)

"That's the lawn where I studied for my San Francisco class - with my toes entwined in the grass, of course, feeling a little like a hippie at heart."

"Here's the route I loved to take between classes the year I liked the basketball star because our paths always crossed that way - not that he ever noticed, of course."

"It was while reading in this spot with Cute Humanities Boy that he mentioned he had a girlfriend. Oh, how devastating it was to see him the next fall and he was married!"

And the list goes on.

For years, this emotional barrage was so overwhelming, it made me dread campus visits. While it was fun to catch up with friends there while I was in town, somehow it always hurt deeply. I was so immensely happy during my college years. Sure, there were difficulties, but BYU fit me like a glove, and leaving it was easily one of the hardest things I've ever done - especially when my Orange County life never fit quite right. It was good enough... but I was never as happy there as I was at BYU, and campus strolls always served as a reminder of that, and of the missteps and mistakes I made as an undergrad. If only I knew then what I know now!

But tonight's stroll was... different.

Instead of viewing campus as a mausoleum wherein the unfulfilled dreams of my late teens and early 20s were laid to rest forever, tonight campus was this homey launching pad for the amazing life I have today: "There's the Kennedy Center, where I'd always pore over the Study Abroad programs and dream of going (but never apply). Ah, well, I'll get to Spain someday." "Oh, the fishbowl classroom where I took New Testament from Stephen E. Robinson (of Believing Christ fame) is now a study lounge! Things always change, even if they seem the same." The Testing Center, the SWKT, the JSB - everything seemed so peaceful and familiar in a totally positive way. It felt like a childhood home should be - warmly nostalgic, but so clearly not current life, and that's totally fine.

Which makes sense. I'm finally so secure and content with pretty much every aspect of my life. Really, I can't complain - and the happy memories from BYU no longer supersede my present because my present is way better than those days were. It's a great reminder of the vitality of living fully present in the moment, for we have experiences in their season for a reason. It's great for now, but it won't always be this way. Children grow up. Seasons change. Jobs come and go. Hair thins, waistlines thicken, and life marches merrily along. It's neither good nor bad - it just is.

These thoughts reminded me of a line in Sweet Home Alabama, where the dreamy Josh Lucas character reminds Reese Witherspoon's character that she "can have roots and wings." Isn't that such a wonderful truth?! We can appreciate where we've been for who it's made us today, but it should never hinder us from soaring into the unlimited possibilities the future holds, especially when there are important, unique roles for us to each fulfill in this great big world of ours. The joy is in discovering what that is and then making it happen - not in dwelling on the good times behind.

BYU was where I broke free of the limiting cocoon of my childhood and started to strengthen my wings. Thankfully the journey didn't end there - the best vistas and flowers and horizons are yet to come.

And with that, I'm going to go cuddle up with Jimmy Stewart AND Cary Grant.

Eat your heart out, Errol Flynn!

Marriage Fever (from the Christa archives)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In honor of V-Day coming up this weekend I went to the Christa archives and pulled out this column I wrote for BYU's student paper five years ago. It pretty much still rings true... and I'm still working on swallowing my antidote. It's a process, lol. Enjoy!

MARRIAGE FEVER
Don’t get discouraged, single sickness can be solved

By Christa Jeanne Woodall
Feb. 12, 2004


Brace yourselves, Cougars.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, marriage fever will soon rage through Utah Valley. No student is safe from the epidemic as friends and roommates fall victim to the irresistible illness of love. This fever spreads like wildfire, and once you catch it, you’re a goner for eternity.

Lurking in the shadows of the love epidemic, however, is another painful, more deadly disease that is often overlooked: singles sickness.

Most students at BYU have marriage as an eventual eternal goal, even those swearing to become the first Mormon nuns. The family is central to happiness, and every family had to start out with a first date somewhere along the way.

As a result, the pressure to date is everywhere, from countless happy couples strolling through Brigham Square and new engagement announcements in the mail each week to “Singles Awareness Day” T-shirts on display in the bookstore and reminders that any man still single after his 25th birthday is a menace to society.

Sometimes I wonder if students need all the pushing. Marriage is a serious matter, and I have yet to find someone who is actively and consciously postponing finding a good match because he or she prefers being single.

Keeping a good perspective on dating becomes difficult here at the Y. While dating is the first step on the road to eternal joy, there is more to dating than going out on one perfect date that will last through eternity. Looking endlessly for the “right one” is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

The word “dating” has its roots in the word “data.” The process involves gathering information and finding what one desires in an eternal match.

Yet the process often turns into a chronic disease. Some people seldom date and feel left out in the cold. Others date often and find the game tiresome and unsatisfying. Either way, the result is a plague of singles sickness, where the topic of dating and marriage dominates conversation and leaves people feeling sick.

There is a remedy, however. Here is my three-fold antidote to singles sickness:

The fastest cure is to establish friendships. Get to know people for who they are without the eternal perspective in mind at first. You may be surprised by what you find beneath the facades people put up.

Singlehood is an ideal time to become the best person you can be. Opportunities arise during single life that don’t work when a spouse or kids must be factored into the equation. Never again will you have so much time to figure out who you are and what you want out of life. Work on developing the qualities you want in an ideal companion. Confidence and happiness are irresistible.

Most importantly, relax and have fun. It’s much more enjoyable to be happily single than to be bitter about it. Dating and marriage aren’t goals you can accomplish alone, but happiness does come in doses for one, and it’s the sweetest medicine you can taste.