Notes on married life thus far:

• The toothpaste goes faster. A lot faster. You know how you're supposed to put a "pea-sized" amount on the toothbrush? I don't know how, seeing as its a vegetable that sure likes to mingle, but Colin must get all the super-sized peas on his plate...
• I don't think our laundry basket is ever empty. Ever.
• I spend my thirty-minute lunch break texting my husband (if he's available to respond). Everyone does that, right?
• I am WAY better at packing a lunch than I was in high school. 
• Colin and I do not feel inclined to watch the same movies. Admittedly, once I finally sat down to watch Lord of the Rings with him, I did enjoy it! But I think his level of enjoyment declined substantially, as I was unable to restrain myself from commenting on the MANY similarities between LOTR and Harry Potter (and Star Wars). I mean, the giant spider? Really?
• Colin's rats live in the basement with us and their pee smells bad.

I miss school and beautiful Buena Vista, but we're figuring things out, saving up money, and will be better situated to make plans in a month or two!

•  

Still really great at job interviews

In a recent phone interview (yep... still hunting) I must have mentioned my personal blog when describing my qualifications for an editorial internship. When I went in for a personal interview, my would-be boss confessed that she'd looked up my blog out of curiosity. Whether this was a good or bad thing was never articulated, and to be honest, I'm still not sure. It had been quite awhile since I posted, and her investigation was a reminder that I need to get back to the blogosphere. However, the knowledge that she had access to my blog was also a bit of a deterrent... because all I really wanted to write about was the fact that a potential employer had found my blog dating back to high school.

Alas, I did not get the job-- which I was actually very qualified for and am rather disappointed about. It was for a really cool organization, too. I still think they're cool even though they didn't hire me, so here's a link to check out their work on documenting nonviolent conflict.

The company is operated by a small team, and I had a Skype interview with the president, who turned out to be a customer at the small food co-op where I cashier. This became real unfortunate when he came to my register to check out groceries the first time after I was informed that I didn't get the internship. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hello! Do you have a member number?
Him: Hi Lauren, I'm Hardy.
Me: Oh...Hi! Um, I can look you up by your name then (because I know his last name... because I had skyped him)
Him: Yeah... my family just got back from vacation, so you'll probably see us around
Me: (scanning his three cans of beans) I saw them a few days ago, actually
Him: Yeah...
Me: Credit or debit?
Him: Credit
***awkward silence waiting for receipt***
Me: And if you could just sign-- (indicating the machine thing where you swipe your card)
Him: Oh yeah, of course, sorry, you'd think I would remember by now
Me: Yeah, it's kind of a gauntlet of questions to get your groceries
***awkward chuckles***
Me: (handing over receipt) Well, enjoy your beans!

He's been back since, and I think that one initial encounter was the awkward hurdle that just had to be jumped. I felt less flustered the second time he came by. And who knows, maybe he never felt awkward about it at all! But then there's me, standing there trying to figure out if it would be good sportsmanship or bad form to say, "I hope your new intern is working out for you!" (Obviously, I decided on bad form and settled on "enjoy your beans," instead. An improvement? Your call.)

So I'm still cashiering, filling out job applications, hoping for interviews and job offers, and waiting for the Peace Corps to decide whether or not they want us in Vanuatu next spring. Cheers to the life of a recent college grad! #whatIusemydegreefor

April

It's the last month of my undergraduate career. I find myself wishing I had already been accepted into a graduate program (although that would require knowledge of what I want to study) just so that I could ease off my perfectionist pressure when it comes to grades.

Alas. I have not.

If all comes crumbling down in the next 3 weeks of my existence, I can always fall back on I was planning a wedding!

Also I have two jobs AND an internship.

Except that the two jobs add up to 9 hrs/week on a good week. And the internship is... far less than that.

But those are unnecessary details.

So. Although I should be reading about public and civil religion in the 1950s, or about the political development of Argentina, or writing about Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, I'm going to write real quickly about General Conference!

Women 8 years old to however-old-you-can-manage-to-live gathered to listen to Mormon leaders two weeks ago. This conference happens every six months, but lately I have been craving the sisterhood I felt on my mission, and that made this experience so much more special to me. The conference was in Utah and broadcast live around the world. As we were singing the opening hymn, I thought All of my mission companions are singing this too, RIGHT NOW. I even sent out a text to a small group of my former mission companions:

Rlly excited bc we're all singing the same song rn

It's a unity I've been missing. I miss having another girl always at my elbow to catch all my really funny jokes and to talk with about our futures and fears and plans and privileges. I miss sleepovers every night of the week, even when all we did was climb into our respective bunk, pull the covers over our heads and go straight to sleep.

And this conference was the closest I've felt to that in a long time. As I thought about, I realized how cool this women's organization is. It's an organization for women, started by women, led by women, with an all-women membership. How unique is that?! Women looking out for the needs of women. Women providing relief for the needs of women.

#girlpower

Trying to be like Jesus

There's a rally on Monday. The description of the event on Facebook is this:

This rally is in response to recent hate literature distributed in Lexington. Specifically, these were fliers encouraging white citizens to embrace "white power" by contacting the KKK. We who organized this rally are appalled by such blatant hate and fearmongoring in our community. We must take a stand against white supremacy, anti-blackness, and anti-Semitism that groups like the KKK represent. We invite all concerned residents of Lexington and the surrounding area to attend a rally to explicitly rebuke such attempts to create an atmosphere of hate and fear. Speakers from local religious, educational, and governmental organizations will be present, as well as performances from local musicians.

A class I took on the Holocaust and on why and how it happened last semester really encouraged me to be more active and vocal in standing up for others. Colin told me about the event, and I invited a few people to attend and shared a post about it on my Facebook wall. Today I was tagged in this post by one of my Facebook friends:

If you are in the Lexington, Buena Vista, or Lynchburg area, I encourage you to attend this event. This is precisely the reason that I withdrew from Southern Virginia University. I used to think that I wanted to live in Virginia, until I got a taste of the dense racism that exists there first hand during my freshman year of college. When I would express my concerns to my peers, and even school faculty (all white people), they "didn't know what I was talking about", and the school even asked me to take down a Facebook status about my concerns because "it was giving the school a negative image". Thank you Lauren Hafen and Colin S. Smith for sharing this event and for not only being conscious of these issues, but for being advocates of change.

And that post really made me pause. I hadn't thought I was doing much of anything-- I was just trying. But when it's something people care about, something they're looking for, they notice! And to that person or those people, it's a big deal.

Blogfamous

In this week's blog news, I'm famous again!

This time it's because I wrote a post, AND because my face is in it.

Voyez:

Photo by Sarah Bench for Southern Virginia University. See link below.

And here's the link:

http://scoop.svu.edu/phi-alpha-theta-spring-induction/

I just like to document when my head is on the university's homepage. Ignore my bajillion tabs-- I don't like closing things.

Women

Walking home after nine tonight, I found myself in front of two disgruntled guys. They were talking about a woman for whom they evidently didn't care. To describe how offensively radical this ridiculous woman is, they included in their description of her that she was probably a feminist in the 70s, kept her maiden name rather than taking her husband's name, and that she majored in women's studies.

I wasn't going to, but I said something. I said, "Sorry for listening, but what you're saying is actually offensive..."

They got defensive. They insisted that "We're all for equal rights!"

They said, "Great, now we just look like a**holes."

They figured I just didn't understand what or who they were talking about.

Which is true. But also beside the point.

Because they didn't understand what I was talking about.

Because even if that woman is deserving of their tirade, it isn't for those reasons.

Next time maybe I'll try to interject, "Wait, can I tell you why what you were saying is offensive?"

Narcissism

 

It soothes my soul.

Blog-ception

I'm feeling pretty blog-famous this week.

Remember that embarrassing interview I had for the SVU Communication's Department?
Did I mention that I got the internship?
Because I got the internship.
And I published my first blog post over there!

http://scoop.svu.edu/the-theory-of-the-best-local-burger/
(It was even on the home page for a hot second)

And then another blog post, which I did not write, but in which MY NAME may be found! And my face!

http://jeffbenedict.com/index.php/blog/435-make-a-choice

Basically I'm really famous this week.

That's all.

Time to go to work and try to make more money than I'm spending.

I n t e r [n ] v i e w

Looking through summer internship opportunities, I decided I have an experiential gap that I would like to fill.

I needed to do an internship to prepare for an internship.

So I headed to the Southern Virginia Communications Department.

(Because I'm really good at blogging, right? Right.)

It was definitely one of the more interactive and interesting interviews that I have been in.

To get a feel for my vibe, I fielded some creative questions:

What is your favorite youtube video? 
Easy.

[PSA: That's not her mom]

What did you eat for breakfast?

Unfortunately, half of a grapefruit. My yogurt was MIA.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

#Embarrassing 

In kindergarten I wrote that, one day, "I really hope to make the cut as a secretary." (I don't think that's how I spelled "secretary," though)

80's music--cool or not?

Uh oh. I knew I'd run into trouble with this one.

"Um. I'm actually not really sure what 80's music is?"

"The Smiths, David Bowie?"

"Umm..."

"Well, it's not a big deal; we just listen to a lot of music while we work. It can be a source of contention and I'm a 80's/90's guy."

"Oh, 90's? (feeling a combination of relief and trepidation) I know Backstreet Boys and N'Sync!"

"...Not that kind of 90's music..."

Pretty cringe-worthy, right? But I keep going...

"Well, if it's the kind of music that my mom listens to, I like it!"

World, you should know that this guy is in his late 20s/ early 30s. He is **not** in the same demographic as my mother.

But we THANKFULLY moved on from there to discuss the pros/cons of Chipotle and Cafe Rio.

(The pork salad and tomatillo sauce put me solidly in league with Cafe Rio, but I do prefer the rice and tortillas at Chipotle. In case you were curious.)

Moral of the story:

Never pick me for your trivia team.

I am White

I'm currently enrolled in a class called "Gender in Modern Europe." I expect I'll learn a lot.

On the first day we defined "Sex," "Gender," and "Sexuality," and wrote down one thing that would be better and one that would be worse if we woke up as the opposite sex the next day.

I wrote:

Worse:

1. Being bad at sports would be really embarrassing

2. The pressure to currently have plans for a lucrative career

Better:

1. Knowing what to wear to a job interview

2. People taking me more seriously

There are a million other things I can think of, retrospectively. If I woke up as a guy, maybe I wouldn't have paranoia about the intentions of the man strolling down his driveway as I walk past his house after dark. And I wouldn't menstruate. That would be cool.

But it's the next exercise we did that I actually wanted to write about.

We wrote "I am...." and then listed ten things about ourselves. The first few were easy.

Daughter

Fiancee

Student

Friend

It got harder

Faithful

22

Millennial

The word "white" came to mind, and I mulled it over, discarding it. Because, I've been taught, we don't define ourselves or one another by the color of our skin. If you're not colorblind, you're racist. Or something like that. As this person explained, "'After many years of being told we should all be colorblind, as if that was possible, a lot of people don’t know how to enter' a conversation about race."

I kept brainstorming and writing:

Returned Missionary
Aunt
Sister

We talked about what we'd written, and the different things a person could be defined by. No one in the class had written their race. One had written her ethnicity.

And I left regretting that I hadn't.

Because I am white. And that matters. It matters not because it makes me more important, but because if I recognize that I'm white, I can recognize that I have been sorted into a privileged social caste. In today's society, I am often, even if subconsciously, devalued because I am a woman. But I am given an advantage in being white. I have to recognize that if I'm going to fight against a prejudiced system. Refusing to recognize that being white makes a difference is refusing to acknowledge the unique hardships faced by so many because their skin is black. If you think something is being treated equally in the status quo, you're not going to try to iron out the inequalities-- because in your mind, they don't exist.

I'm still learning and figuring these real social issues out, but here's a video that explains it all better than I have:

Found this here

A little bit of love

I've been keeping this tab open on my browser because it's full of adorable cartoons.

You're welcome.

2016 Resolutions

I'm morally opposed to resolutions.
Or at least I used to be.
Or at least that's what I used to tell people to express the enormity of how much I dislike(d) goal-setting, already anticipating the painful follow-up.

But I am a new woman, and actually have some things that I want to work on, so I'm taking the start of a new year as the moment to start my streak of successes and get back into good habits that I've been slacking on.

I, Lauren, am going to read in the scriptures EVERY DAY. I already did it today, and I am set on not missing a single day. So there it is, published online, for all three of you who will ready this to see! And I've already recruited mah boo-thang to do it with me, so I've got some back-up.

I also want to blog more (and write in my journal more). I haven't know what to write-- it's tough, figuring out what is or isn't too personal to share and just lance* into cyberspace. But I want to do it!

I want to do family history on Sundays.

I want to find (or organize) a regular service opportunity that I can participate in-- regularly!

And my last goal is to, every day, write down something I'm grateful for about that guy (the "boo-thang") that I mentioned earlier. Because I want to be a more grateful person, and to see the good things in my relationships with others, rather than taking people and the nice things that they do for granted.

Doing those few things will make me a better person. So here goes!