But I digress.
So lately I've been spending a lot of time writing "profound" observations and putting them on the internet without actually cataloging many of my specific life experiences. This, as you can imagine, is a problem for someone like me who will very likely one day slip into a deep state of alteizmers. And despite my introverted anti-social ways sometimes, I do live a life. And it's story is sometimes worth sharing.
Life is great for the most part. I don't get to go hiking as much as I'd like, and despite hours lying in the backyard tanning you'd still think I'm an albino, but all in all I feel as though I'm progressing in my humanhood.
Tonight, in particular, was one of those nights where I really had to step back and just admire what a unique situation I find myself in. Going to an extremely diverse and international school is amazing--the fact that I can hear 5 different languages spoken in my home at any one time is fascinating enough as it is, not to mention the 10-15 other languages I hear floating around as I walk from class to class. There's so much potential to learn more here outside of the class than ever in it.
One of my favorite foreign languages, as you probably know, is French. I've been partial to it since I first started taking classes my freshman year in high school and have stuck with it through University. As part of my schooling here I'm required to go to my french tutor 1.5 hours a week for one-on-one sessions. Most of the time we just end up chatting about our lives, tests, families, and events. But sometimes we get to go a little bit further and really exchange culture--which for someone like me whose degree is in International Cultural Studies--is fantastic.
In our lesson this evening my tutor shared with me some the oral traditions and customs of his home country in Togo, West Africa. While he was telling me about the generations old gathering around the firepit, passing on such a rich and important oral history I couldn't help but feel like my story was slowly being adopted into his narrative. That this was something I needed to pay attention to and appreciate and learn from. Something I might not have been able to experience in any other way than through stories.
And then later tonight I had further opportunities to expand my horizon. As I came into the front room at around midnight I saw my Japanese housemate hanging out watching a movie with the most beautiful Serbian you ever saw. Casually, we started discussing the plot of the movie (Oceans 11) and swapping the typical introductory information. An hour later we found ourselves enmeshed in our own stories of traveling and learning about life in alternative ways. Never in my life would I have thought I'd be sharing stories and culture at 1 a.m with a Serbian and a Japanese as my Taiwanese, Samoan, Korean, and American housemates bustled about upstairs.
So many stories under one roof. So many different ways of experiencing one life, of giving meaning to the ways in which we interact and narrate ourselves into existence. This past weekend I had the opportunity to go and learn about the power of storytelling by one of my favorite professors here at BYUH (whose own story is closely tied with that of the Marshallese). In it, he said that storytelling had the opportunity to both create and destroy. Now I've seen my fair share of destructive stories, but I must also be conscious of the fact that I am constantly living in one continuous process of creation. One in which I can intermix my story with so many others in such coming to understand the possibilities and limitations of intercultural exchanges.
And while I may complain that I'm not where I want to be money/school/relationship wise--this I know. That I am incredibly blessed. And even if it is 1:30 in the morning and you're tired and feeling a little blue, that people can still come into your lives without you even looking for it and help you to have faith that your story has a place in the tapestry of existence..
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