how i say goodbye to oxford:

stock up on my absolute favourite british chocolate that you cannot find outside the UK.

so my stomach doesn't get too lonely whilst back in the states.


and yes i will spell favorite as "favourite" and use "whilst" for as long as i can...
plus notice my empty desk. sad face for a sad day.

wells cathedral

mom and dad are here! (look how cute they are) they're staying outside bath, so i took the train to see them today. we drove to nearby wells to see the STUNNING, and i repeat

STUNNING cathedral. my goodness! check out the "scissor arches," built in the 1330s. 700 years old. i mean really.

love it, and love mom and dad.

tribute 6

this is another collective tribute, this time to

the fab five.

consisting of

ali
brittany
lindsay
melanie
(and me).

context of why i'm posting this tribute: i spent the day cycling in the gorgeous villages of the neighbouring cotswolds today. it was beautiful to the point of transcendence... it seems the day was more a dream than a reality. and it's hitting me that i have to leave this gorgeous city of oxford, in the fabulous country of england, in the wonderful continent of europe, in two short weeks.

sad face.

BUT! there is hope! there are few people i love more in the world than the people mentioned above who i pay tribute to today. we became friends freshman year at byu, very serendipitously as we all lived on the same end of our hallway in david john hall. what i love about our friendship is that it's not based on any pretension or ulterior motive, we all just love each other for who we are. we are very different in interests and opinions, but that doesn't matter in the end - our care and concern for each other trumps all that. i have more pure, unadulterated fun with one, two, or ideally all of the members of the fab five than i have with anyone else.

so. even though i have to leave oxford and try to be a real person with self-confidence in the never-ending job search (sad face again), at least i'm going home closer to such dear friends. ali may actually live near me on the east coast next year, which would make life basically perfect. i kid not when i say that my thought process on days like this runs in such a circular motion... sadness of leaving dear ones here, but overflowing joy in thinking what adventures could happen in the future with such friends from my past. so in a sense i'm paying tribute to the fab five of the future - i could rattle off stories of our past, but really no one else would think such things are nearly as funny or entertaining, and i think such a tribute would imply that i see some sort of end of our friendship, that it was an epoch lived in provo rather than a living reality.* it's remarkable how no matter what has happened in each others lives, or how we've changed, we remain close. how beautiful a thing is that?

i love you all dearly.

*besides all these photos are from freshman year. haha, how young we all looked then. :)

tribute 5

this is a collective tribute to

andrew/ethan/emma/sophie/audrey/parker/miles/annie/jack/max/sadie/mabel/oliver/stella

i was reinvigorated this week to reflect on the purpose of family, and the glue which supposedly holds that together: love. "well, duh" one says - what a trite phrase! yes, obviously love is at the centre of family. but honestly and truly, how often is this not missing in familial interactions? it's too common that families take each other for granted, because they are always there, always around, and one therefore has free reign to criticise and debase each other at leisure. people take individual stresses out on their children or partner or sibling or parent.

this is a tragedy.

my tribute to all the nieces and nephews has two meanings: because rarely have i seen more love in my life than that displayed by these wonderful children to each other and to us, "the grown-ups," but also i stand in awe so often at the amount of love those grown-ups have freely given right back to the kids. it's a marvel to watch all of them interacting, to see the grandkids laughing themselves silly in the triangle room at sundance, and to see mimi and lincoln wrestling with them for hours, and ginger playing games with andrew and ethan... to see stephanie rocking stella to sleep yet again, and katie teaching annie to sing like ariel, or elliott sledding with his kids, matthew snowboarding with them, mike building a snowman with olibo, neal exploring the ocean with audrey and parker, and leslie kissing miles every two seconds :)

i could go on with a list of moments i've remarked in the interactions between the grandkids and grown-ups, and the absolute outpouring of love on either side. i am touched beyond words by such love, and so glad that we prize patience and kindness with each other over reproaches and cruelty. the home is the scene of too much abuse and destruction, in places i am shocked to discover... what a rare thing it is to find love in the home, and what in the end could be more important?

(appendum)

4. oh yes and one more reason i love email - dad can send such wonderful talks to us as this one by elder holland. i have rarely been touched by a talk like i was by this one. so thanks dad for sending it along.

wonders of email

i really do love email - this is how it has come in handy the last months:

1. i was able to send out about 5 million job applications (a slight exaggeration... only slight).

2. today i was able to send out 23 different emails to editors of potential academic journals to publish my thesis (and that is no exaggeration). note: i am so thrilled that there exists a journal entitled the "African Journal of Reproductive Health." how perfect for my thesis?! they must publish it. c'mon.

3. friends can send pictures to each other with the greatest of ease: like this one i received yesterday from raakhi (which i love) that shows the absolute pure joy of me, toni, and peter after walking down to the exam schools on high street here at oxford to see our names posted on the large wooden boards with such fantastic results from the hard work of our exams/theses. raakhi took it literally moments after we saw our names posted - you can see the large white boards behind us.

look how happy we are :)

tributes 3 and 4

i HATE goodbyes....

tomorrow two of my dearest friends, peter and raakhi, leave oxford, and i'm so sorry to say goodbye to them.

this is the beginning of the end, really - it's all hitting me even more that this year at oxford is done, and what a pity how swiftly it passed...

peter and raakhi are a fantastic couple. peter lives right upstairs from me, and i'd often spend afternoons and evenings in his room conversing about various topics from jobs to relationships, and he was always so filled with kindness and wisdom. raakhi and i would frequent oxford coffee shops for similar discussions, sometimes throwing sartre, mozambican poetry, or other such literary topics in as well. there is absolutely no pretension in either of these individuals, nothing forced or rehearsed: they are entirely genuine and live true to themselves. i love to meet such people, who read l'etre et le neant or run a south african NGO simply for personal passion, and no exterior recognition or appearances. i'm tired of seeing people cite art movements or political statements in order to fit an "alternative" mold, and love when people do such things with real intent. not seeking originality or an image, but are instead critical and thoughtful thinkers and authentic human beings.

peter and raakhi have been such a blessing to me this year, i've loved our meals and conversations. they have crafted so much of my oxford experience. i have learned so much from our interactions, and been so enriched. they are both individuals that help time pass in a more meaningful way, but without pseudo-seriousness and self-aggrandizement. in other words, it was always delightfully fun to discuss meaningful topics with both of them, never lacking for a lot of light-heartedness and laughter. :)

i will miss both dearly.

tribute 2

you asked for it ginger, and it's true (of course) that i have to include the big parents in my great list of tributes. in many ways of course one's parents are the most obvious crafters of an individual's character. who else contributed more to my culmination than those who nurtured me from day one? and i don't want to separate mom and dad into separate tributes, because they do have such a wonderfully strong relationship and work together so brilliantly, that they are very much linked in my estimation.

so as to why they come now* - as i said in my last post, why i went to mozambique in the spring of 2004 with care for life warrants many tributes. but ultimately i can peg it down to mom and dad, to the way they raised me and the rest of us clan. and of course the practical issue of dad's willingness to accompany me all the way to southern africa to ensure my safety - thanks dad :)

i remember mom saying repeatedly, as she drove us to villa park elementary or cerro villa middle school:

orange county is not the real world.

it is perhaps this point of wisdom that stuck with me more than anything else from my childhood. but not only did mom and dad express such truths in words, but allowed all of us kids to see it for ourselves. they never shied away from taking all of their six children to the far reaches of the world, from japan to estonia, egypt to new zealand. it was this exposure from the earliest age which made me conscious of the vast nature of human experience and potential.

without the constant prodding of mom and dad to look beyond our own borders and way of living to those of others, i would not have thought to study and work in africa, or live and attend school in england. they did not want their children to be ignorant, especially in regards to the world around them. from what i saw growing up around me in the OC, few parents have such breadth of wisdom and vision to raise children in such a way. :) i am eternally grateful for mom's interest in egypt, and dad's will to take us all their when i was 15. it was that trip above anything that opened my eyes to the world beyond katella avenue, and instilled a burning (and sometimes obsessive) curiosity in me to engage in that world as much as possible.

dad's most famous phrase, "perspective," is also applicable here: he repeats the word so often, and it's uses are truly innumerable. in this sense perspective can be to see beyond your own self, to see all the others surrounding you and attempt in anyway to understand they are beloved just as much as you, that they are your equal in every sense. what a brilliant perspective to have! we should all work towards it.

so muchos gracias mom and dad, i would of course in no way be who i am without you. love you dearly.

*i can also think of no better time to write a tribute to mom and dad, after my results came out on my exams/dissertation here at oxford. :) mom's constant example of reading in our house, of getting her masters at cal state fullerton, how could any of us not be inspired intellectually in such an environment?