Blackboard

6 days left. My 25 page paper looks like this ^ so far.

Yes, it's almost 7 pm on a Friday night, and I am blogging. Because that's the point of these things: to be myself, in writing, on the web. Well, the above picture is most certainly me at the moment. Forcing myself into the close quarters of the library all weekend so I could get some real headway on this final paper. As I explained to my missionary brother this week, I like to think of my assignments as my "sheep." ("I wanna be a shepherd." "A Shepherd?" "Ya. I wanna get some sheep and tend to them." "Get out of my office." What movie??) Ahem. Jesus told--no, invited-- us to pray over our flocks and our fields, well, these little things are what I cultivate, just one sliver of all I dream of adding to the world. So, I'm praying. And brainstorming like H***!

I got a queer sense of enjoyment out of this exercise- scratching out postulations with chalk on a board like some math geek (only my theories revolve around art and beauty). What do you know, the old school method has a few advantages! Mapping out my arguments across a planar surface, erasing and rearranging them where necessary, actually helped smooth out a lot of the mental road blocks I had on the path to that glorious "A." Knock on wood.

I should be getting back to work now.

Friends, I have some news for you: maybe one of the other reasons why I felt oddly delighted to be at that chalkboard this morning is that, in the middle of my scratching, I got a phone call from a staff member at the National Law Enforcement Museum, who was pleased to offer me the summer archival internship that I interviewed for earlier this week. I am THRILLED with this opportunity! The NLEM is essentially a "museum-without-walls" right now; it has a staff, and a collection, and a very important mission, but no permanent building. They're in the middle of a capital campaign to raise the money to build a permanent home, underneath a park in downtown DC (in a similar fashion to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Berlin by Peter Eisenman, which is amazing...). The NLEM will be right near the National Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial, a beautiful space directly across the street from the National Building Museum!

"Archives??" you are thinking. You don't know me that well. I actually have a fairly decent background in working with primary documents and collections from several jobs past, and it is only about to get better! I am juuuuust OCD enough to really be good at organizing thousands of documents at a time, although the stack of papers and books scattered around my apartment argue otherwise. I am so excited to tell you what I see and what I learn as I go along this summer. GO COPS!

I'm just a wee bit thankful this evening for the opportunities that I have at the moment... and I feel like I am almost ready to start building up a newer, bigger, and more fantastical set of dreams. (AFter fiNaLS). Because if there's one thing I've learned in the past few weeks/months/years... life is always going to surprise and delight you. If you ask it to.

Time to go.

PS A big, heartfelt cross-country hug to DaniandDave, MeganandJared, and Mike, Jess, Lilly, and new baby Peter! I love you guys SO SO MUCH!!!!! (And to Jess, who has been steadfastly offering up her brother's hand in marriage this past month so that I could come home to Utah this summer :) Sorry to disappoint... next year maybe. PS I love you!