It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life is on right now, so the holidays must be around the corner!  This movie has a special place in my heart and I've been waiting to see it pop up on one of our three channels.  I saw it for the first time as a freshman in college with my buddy and dorm next-door neighbor, Monica.  It was the last day of classes before Thanksgiving break, and we had a heart-to-heart after watching the movie about our futures and how we both wanted to make a difference in the world.  (You know, idealistic young folks' talk.)  Monica was feeling conflicted about her choice of college major and wondering if she should change to something more altrustic and socially-oriented.  She wanted to change the world, simply put. 

I drove home for Thanksgiving the next day and received a phone call that night that Monica had died instantly in a bad car crash on her way home for the holiday.  Unfortunately her family did not not get to see her before the accident happened.  :( 

Every time I see It's a Wonderful Life, I think of Monica and the happiness she brought me for the short time I knew her.  I think of the timeliness of our viewing of the film the night before she died, and even more so, the conversation that followed about the little things we can do in our lives to improve the world around us.  Even though her time here was short, she was a great person who touched everyone she knew.

Success

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mantra

"What seem to us as bitter trials

are often blessings in disguise."

- Oscar Wilde

Coco's Parting Words

I loved this. Great advice for anyone, no matter your profession or situation.

To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

- Conan during his last show

Trust and Deceit

After undergrad, I got a job at the headquarters of a national department store. My first position was filling in for an employee away on medical leave due to cancer. I grew to know this particular employee very well as she would come in some days between chemo treatments and we would work side by side. She was a sweet woman who seemed to be getting the short end of the stick when it came to life. Her husband had died, leaving her with five children. Shortly after she became sick with cancer. She was a low wage employee and had a hard time making ends meet.

Luckily, everyone at the company looked out for her. They would take turns making dinners for her to take home to her children. They frequently collected cash donations to help her cover the cost of her husband's funeral, her medical bills, and her children's needs. After some time, she met a new man and got married, and employees raised plenty of money to help pay for her small wedding. One of the dress designers even made her a one of a kind wedding dress.

Although I am generally not happy working in the private sector and this job definitely wasn't fulfilling for me, I really appreciated the generosity and sense of family that employees felt for each other. Even though the massive office housed almost 2,000 employees, we all still felt an important part of our own teams.

Which is why discovering the truth of this employee's story was so devastating for us.

No dead husband.
No new husband.
No cancer.
No children.

The first crack in her story came out when another employee received a strange call from the woman during a day she was supposed to be at work. Another call, then another, but no truth - just strange hangups. Finally, she admitted that she was in jail and begged the other employee not to tell anyone. She had been mistaken for someone else and needed money to get out.

The county we worked in kept all inmate records online, and this employee was smart enough to do some searching. It turned out our lady had been a first class con artist and had a rap sheet as long as Mike Tyson's. She had been in trouble for forging checks, grand theft auto, identity theft, and plenty of other major crimes. And somehow, while working at our company, she again had tricked the insurance company into thinking she had cancer and was collecting insurance money while also being paid normally while out on "medical leave."

Finding out this woman had betrayed all of our collective trust was absolutely overwhelming. Not only because everyone had given this woman significant amounts of money, but because we trusted and loved her. We felt sympathy for her hard knocks and those of her children. And we had special places in our hearts for her; we considered her one of those people we wanted to protect in life.

Although these unfortunate events took place in 2001, I've been going over and over them in my mind the past few days. On Monday morning, one of my coworkers was placed on "indefinite administrative leave" and went home immediately. We have no further information, but all I can think about is how genuinely sweet she is and how it will be so devastating to hear of her being capable any kind of deceit or wrongdoing in her professional role. The news should come tomorrow, and I find myself unable to fall asleep tonight. I so hope I am overreacting. I need her to be an honest person! Let's hope there is some explanation and I'm worried about nothing.

Congrats LBJ Grads!

My apologies for my web absence and extreme tardiness with major life events. More to come and more often, I promise. :)

Myself and 145 of my colleagues can now call ourselves graduates of the LBJ School of Public Affairs! We graduated with our MPAffs on Saturday, May 23rd. Bill Bradley, former US Senator and star of some sport made for tall people, was our keynote. Sticking with the mission of our chosen program, he quoted:

"The tragedy is not to die. The tragedy is to die with commitments undefined, with convictions unexpressed, and with service unfulfilled. I hope you leave here with clearly defined commitments, with the courage to express your convictions, and recognize that what is ahead of you is a lifetime of public service. You simply have to find what is the right way to do it.”

He gave a great speech, but it was honestly overshadowed by Susan Peterson's speech to her fellow graduates. Susan talked about her reaction to hearing that a French foreign minister stated that the "magic is over" in terms of the US and our world relations. Here's what Susan said:

“I think we’ve been doing ‘magic’ for too long in the United States. ‘Magic’ is disguising sub-prime mortgages as sound investments and making 20 percent returns. ‘Magic’ is transforming chemicals and preservatives into substances resembling food and selling it cheap to Americans who need to eat more fruits and vegetables. ‘Magic’ is using multi-lane highways to string together far-flung suburbs and exurbs populated with McMansions and calling it the American dream. If Kouchner is right, and the magic really is over, I am relieved, because now we can stop doing magic and get on with the business of doing good. Doing good like working to increase equity in the world. Things LBJ students are trained to do and awesome at doing.”

I've earned a degree that I am very proud of. I'm part of an incredible group of world citizens who are dedicated to lives of public service. I'm amazed at what we have collectively accomplished and excited to hear about our impact in the future.

Abbey and I with, in my brother's words, "the most expensive piece of blank paper ever"

Ellen DeGeneres gave my personal favorite commencement speech this year. She shared many jokes and her private history of experiencing a very low point in life before becoming a successful comedienne and later, one of the first openly gay mainstream celebrities. Enjoy!

This Will Make Your Day (or Week)

I think this video could be a metaphor for life. It makes me so happy. Make sure you watch until the end.

A Few Engagement Pics

Chris and I had some fun engagement photos taken in January by Ms. Whitney Lee, who will also be our wedding photographer. She's posted some of her faves on her blog.

Abortion Discourse at Notre Dame

"...when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe — that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground."

I found Obama's Notre Dame commencement speech to be very well written, and he did a great job of addressing the extremely hot topic of the day: abortion. Here are his unifying words on the issue:

So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let's reduce unintended pregnancies. Let's make adoption more available. Let's provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women. Those are things we can do.

Read the entire text of Obama's speech here.

Top Ten Things I Can't Wait to do Post-Graduation

1. Read for FUN. I have dozens of books that have accumulated over the past two years and I can't wait!!
2. Cook on a regular basis. No more 3-meals-in-a-coffee-shop days.
3. Reestablish Saturday and Sunday as fun days rather than work days.
   
4. Garden. And make use of my beautiful herbs who are loving the rain.
   
5. Train for a bike race. Got all the ingredients right now except for time.
   
6. Benefit from employer-purchased health insurance. Oh god, what a wonderful day that will be.
   
7. Reunite with Barton Springs and other glorious places that miss me.
8. Play games or socialize at a coffee shop. Or more specifically, go to a coffee shop for reasons other than work.
9. Rediscover photography. I see classes in my future.
10. Be outside every possible minute of my favorite season.
    

Yin Yanging Through Life

Last week was very turbulent. I'd known for weeks that it would be crazy: I had several papers due for grad school and my 6-month long/80 page Trail Master Plan for work due before Chris and I cut town for Thanksgiving. So I warned myself over and over that I was going to be a stressball until I stepped on the plane...and then everything would be okay. But in the true nature of life, I was thrown a few curveballs. Monday night I was rear ended as I was scrambling from meeting to meeting. It was disappointing to have to spend several hours talking with the culprit's parents about how they were going to pay and getting estimates, but it was just painful to know that I was losing my valuable paper-writing time. [and it's even more painful a week later since the other party is completely uncooperative and downright dishonest.]

Then Tuesday came, and we got on a few planes to head to Florida. I got really cold in the Memphis airport and my little sausage fingers deflated...and...poof, my engagement ring was G O N E. And, we hadn't had a chance to get it insured yet. GULP. I don't need to elaborate there - I'm sure you can imagine how horrible that felt.

So, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself (and Chris). But then we got to Florida, and within a few hours, were surrounded by 35+ family members (both Peters and Sembera!). One of them said to me something to the effect that yeah, it sucked to lose the ring, but think how fortunate we are to even be able to have had the ring in the first place. And I starting thinking about how true that is on many different levels. I'm fortunate to be alive, to be happy, healthy, and very well fed. But I'm also very fortunate to be surrounded by an amazing family, which continues to grow larger every year. I'm fortunate that Chris and I have not only found each other, but our families are easily merging. I couldn't ask for more.

This all got me thinking about my favorite subject, science. In fifth grade science, I used to teach the concepts of constructive and destructive forces. It was easy for the kids to think of earthquakes and hurricanes as bad, but it was a little harder for them to understand that a little bit of good can come out of those as well. Of course I'm majorly oversimplifying by using the terms "good" and "bad." But the kids needed to understand that tsunamis can create new land as well as destroy it. That nothing is black or white. So I started using the Yin Yang to teach the concept.

There's always a little good in the bad, and a little bad in the good. The kids really seemed to grasp that concept. Some even made their own personal connections: "Like Michael Jackson, Miss?" :)

So my reflection about this simple yet wise symbol really helped me get over the financial losses Chris and I have experienced lately. The ring was a symbol of us and our future, but the important things are still here. And my reflection made me realize that in the black half of my Yin Yang, my little white circle isn't all that little. It's filled with loving family and friends.

So it's time to close a door, Mr. Ring.

R.I.P. Ring

You had a good life. Saw some mountains, did some dishes.

October 10 - November 25, 2008

And my Aunt Sharon did give me a thoughtful gift over the Thanksgiving holidays. It's a magnetic ring box for my next ring. (She bought it before I lost my ring.) It will be a perfect complement to Mr. Ring2 sometime in the future :)