Updates from June, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kimberly Hula 11:55 am on June 20, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , family therapy, graduate education, langston hughes   

    Ante Up Academia 

    Recently I’ve exchanged emails with a faraway friend who had a dream – a big one.  She readied herself; prepped and did diligence to see it to reality.  She steeled herself against potential rejection and devised plans of action and at the moment of – the I-put-all-on-bets-on-this-horse wrist-clencher of a moment – she got what she wanted.

    You were expecting bad news, weren’t you?

    So she celebrated and grew anxious for new adventures to come, but, on account of many of lifes obstacles, she had to hold off.  It was a tough decision (grueling, really) but it was a decision that needed to be made.

    Why am I re-hashing sad stories, you ask?  Well, I’m not.  The upside to this is that our heroine has opportunity to chase her dream again, just after sometime.  While it’s never ideal to put your dreams in forebearance, it’s also not an open-and-shut case.  They are there for the pursuing, lest you not forget about them.

    This got me to thinking of dreams I’ve long deferred.  Namely THE dream I’ve let slide, on account of many things: fear, other budding dreams, convenience, terror.  Because I’d sooner explain the day away in prose, here’s a good summation:

    What happens to a dream deferred? (More …)

     

  • Kimberly Hula 11:28 am on June 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: instagram, photoadaymay, ,   

    Take a Shot at It 

     “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
    ― Henri Cartier-Bresson

     

    Day 12: Something that makes you happy (Conglomerative Craning)

    By now most anyone that knows me understands that if given the option I’d rather write it out.  Meaning, I’ll defer to text over talk; email over skype; personal readings over public readings.  I’m a slave to my own introversion and while it’s something I’m working on (see: year of adventures makes me uncomfortable), it’s also something I’ve come to recognize in myself.

    All told, this has served me well.  I’ve convinced myself that I like writing and then I write.  I pretty much shun all the other lovely art forms out there because, well, they are intimidating and beyond my realm of comprehension and ability.  Would if I could write and illustrate and pontificate and prepare as others can, but I can’t.  I dead-end with the pen and that’s that.

    Well, maybe not.  This week (month) had me follow

    Day 28: The weather today (Sunny, says Hiro)

    ing the lead of a dear old friend, Ms. Myndi.  Now a new mother, mama Myndi has the Midas touch for making anything (and I mean anything) into a beautiful something.  Of late I’ve been a fan of her photography.  Even more, I noticed that she took part in a ‘photo-a-day campaign’ via Instagram.  This charge had her produce a photograph a day, in accordance with whatever the list decreed.  The results were lovely, often unexpected and always so Myndi.  So I thought to live life through the eyes of the photog and give this game a go. 

    It’s not nearly as easy as it seems.  First off, composition is everything.  That said, composition really is everything.  There is SO MUCH to photograph.  There are infinite stores of color and light and people and places in this world.  There is so much matter that might perfectly depict, “A word I love” (Day 10) or, simply, “fun” (Day 4).  How does Myndi do this?  How does anyone do this?  I thought to find out. (More …)

     

  • Kimberly Hula 10:25 am on June 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Promising Pals, volunteer,   

    The “Write” Stuff 

    “With writing, we get second chances” – Jonathan Safran Foer

    Kids say the darndest things, don’t they?  You might think, and they are quite darn, but kids also have an amazing propensity to say all the things we adult sometimes keep ourselves from saying.  They are compact truth seekers – perpetual ‘why’ yowlers, who keep us on our toes and remind us of the people we once were (which in turn, speaks to who we’ve become).  So while they may not speak in polysyllabics, the ‘stuff’ of their speech should be heeded.  And heed I will.

    I volunteered at a local Boston Public School, The Timility, in a campaign called, “Promising Pals”.  The premise is simple: volunteers (typically professional graduate students and adults in the community) will pair up with an assigned student and exchange letters throughout the year.  At the end of the academic year the volunteers will convene for a school assembly and breakfast with their long-time ‘pal’. 

    Me & Mr. Musse hamming it up

    It’s such a sweet concept.  The assembly: sweeter (but more on that shortly).

    You can request a student, but I had no gender or age preference and rolled the dice.  Lucky roll as I received a letter crafted in fine penmanship from Mr. Musse.  He was a seventh grade student with a love – a FERVENT LOVE – of math.  What luck!  A studious student!  Someone who would appreciate the intent and philosophical push of this campaign.  He employed good grammar!  He showed ambition in education!  Everything was as I’d otherwise request, with one some caveat.

    Mr. Musse hated writing.

    This is a great blow to a writer.  (More …)

     

  • Berton 12:24 am on June 7, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Adventure #8 – The Transit of Venus 

    Most people that know me well would say that I am a nerd, geek, or some other word associated with that kind of culture.  And they would be spot on.  Not only do I collect comic books, play tons of video games, and have a geeky tattoo, but I also absolutely love outer space.  I use the word stellar as a regular adjective.  I can go stare at the stars for hours on end and be inspired to have the most heart staggering conversations.  I read books by Stephen Hawking for the fun of it.

    However, I can’t remember the last time I looked through a telescope.

    My father has a telescope, and I’m told that when I was younger, we would look through it together.  But these memories are sadly lost to me.  However, as I’ve discovered countless numbers of times over the years, the impression of these events with my father has stuck with me.  So for my adventure, I decided to observe the Transit of Venus through one the largest telescopes available to the public in the Twin Cities, which was at the University of Minnesota.

    I was somehow able to convince three people to join me by saying that looking at a shadow of a planet as it crosses the sun is a fun thing to do (thanks for humoring me).  And I’m glad they came along, because the event was attended by far more people than I was expecting.  The line was over an hour long, and the event itself was only visible for close to three hours from our location.  I won’t lie, I was kind of worried that we wouldn’t make it to the telescope in time.  We were inching forward and racing the sunset.

    But we made it!

    We were able to see the transit maybe twenty minutes before sunset.  And though I was only able to view it for ten seconds, I was absolutely floored.

    My mind has a difficult time grasping such vast notions as space.  The distance between our planet and Venus is staggering, and yet I was able to see it.  And it was only a small dot compared to the vastness of the star that helps to sustain life here on Earth.  And our star is only one of an infinitely large number of stars in this universe

    When I look towards the heavens, I am so humbled.  I am literally able to look back in time just by looking up.  I am able to realize how I am such an infinitesimal cog in the gears of the universe.  Yet, I’d like to think that I have the ability to make large, positive, and shattering contributions to my friends, my family, and the world at large.

    This contrast makes me feel nothing shy of giddy.

     

  • Berton 5:54 pm on June 1, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Back in the Saddle Again… 

    For the past few weeks, I have missed adventuring.  That isn’t to say that I have been sedentary.  Actually, far from it!  Since my last posts, I have done quite a few things.  I gave up soda for Lent; I went to my first baby shower; I began working out five days a week; I drove to Chicago to help a friend move to Minneapolis.

    However, these were all things that sort of happened naturally.  Yes, they were amazing and enjoyable and I had put forth a great spirit and vibrancy to them.  But the lone fact that I didn’t consider them to be a part of my “Year of 52 Adventures” just didn’t make them feel quite as alive for some reason.

    I am sure this is all a psychological freak out in my head, but it made me want to adventure again.  So here I am!  Attempting to finish what I started just over five months ago.

    I have a lot of catching up to do.  Therefore, this may be the busiest, craziest summer ever.  But I think I can cope with that idea.

    In order to make up for the lost ground, I will have to do multiple adventures during many weeks.  Therefore, from now on, instead of marking my posts based on the week they took place, they will be titled based on which Adventure Number they represent.  Not that you care; just a matter of housekeeping.

    So look forward to Adventure #8, coming soon!

     

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