A little tour

I know you're all thinking "Sure, Lydia, you'll get a job any day now... which is why you've been there for nearly two months." No really I promise, it's just around the corner, I just need to be patient :)

So in the meantime, I'll give you a little photographic tour of our current home. Well first, Andrew's first day of work!

And now: the Miller House. We live with 5 other people -- it's all kinds of fun. The house is actually pretty modern inside, other than the complete lack of air conditioning... yeah, it's miserable on hot days.

I'm convinced this dumpster actually has my name on it, underneath that sticker.

And on into the backyard:

Dock #1 and dock #2. The one on the right is pretty nifty for getting the raft into the water. The one on the left... was a failure.

And our makeshift fire pit! Andrew's eagle scout skills have come in quite handy since living here.

Meet the roommates (well, mot of them)

Well that's it for now ladies and gentlemen, have a lovely evening!

On the luxury of having too much to chose from

Sigh. More female dilemmas. Nothing new, but a few recent articles have stirred up the debate and continue to make me think.

1% Wives Are Helping Kill Feminism and Make the War on Women Possible, according to this author.

Ouch! I see some pertinent points here, but I'm not sure I agree with her premise that feminism means raw wage equality. I've always seen feminism as giving political and social equality to women but especially valuing femaleness as much as maleness, which to me entails that a woman doesn't have to do exactly the same thing as a man in order to have the same "value" in society. And while she starts off talking specifically about "one percenters", her arguments are really stretched out to include any woman who has a choice. I find her basic assumption scary because it means that, basically, she would love to see all women forced to work full time and earn their own keep.

I agree with this:

"Who can possibly take feminism seriously when it allows everything, as long as women choose it?" 

There has to be some sort of standard: Becoming a porn star is a bad feminist choice. Being a mother who forces her daughter to marry at 14 is a bad feminist choice. I'd say dropping out of high school is a bad feminist choice. And she's right that mothering is not the same thing as salaried work, BUT that doesn't mean it doesn't have value: I believe being a stay-at-home-mom has immense value and it should be viewed by all as a valid--and valuable--life choice.

She has a point about women being financially dependent on men -- it's a dangerous position to be in, and that's why education is still very important, at least having the POSSIBILITY of being able to support yourself should (heaven forbid) anything happen (which has incidentally been taught by prophets). But otherwise, her tone is pretty crappy and I'm sure she's going for controversy here... not everything of value in life is measured in $$ signs. She's like the people who want to prevent Laura Bush from receiving the Alice Award, which honors a woman who has advanced the cause of women: I refuse to let a few individuals define feminism in such a narrow way.

Then there's this article, which is spot-on. It also depresses me, because it is so true. I get incredibly frustrated sometimes that the media industry wants to force me to decide between family and a career -- it's still very much all-or-nothing in journalism, and frankly I'm sick of it. There are no true role-models in the media for me, no woman that's figured it all out. I don't want to give up my prime child-bearing years only to be chewed up and spit out as soon as I get a wrinkle or two.

There's another dilemma in all this, as a Latter-day Saint woman: we absolutely have benefited from women entering the workplace in many, many ways. Family-friendly corporate policies for example (for women AND men), or domestic policy that benefits children and mothers. It is important for women to hear their own viewpoints and opinions expressed in the marketplace of ideas. I think female reporters (and not just single career women, either) are necessary, crucial even, because they will have an eye for certain issues that may not be brought up otherwise. And we can bring qualities like empathy and (as mothers) a common understanding of education/health/family issues.

But that brings up the question: how many LDS women should chose a non-traditional path? It's a hard question to answer, especially when I'm pretty sure EVERYBODY I know is sort of wondering why we don't have kids yet. And yet Jimmer didn't serve a mission. Steve Young played football on Sundays. Valerie Hudson isn't a full-time stay-at-home mom. Mitt Romney spends a lot of time traveling away from his family. And nobody gives them any trouble about it, because these people make valuable contributions and also give a positive image of the Church to the world. (Well, Romney arguably not, since liberals don't like him) The irony is, we sort of need more Mormon women in the workplace and the public eye in order to push back, to change the workplace to fit better into Mormon women's lives, if that's what they want. But doing that takes sacrifices.

So how do you know you're supposed to be a norm-breaker? At what point do you know your contribution will be worth the concessions you might have to make? Who will be the next one to place themselves and their family on the Sacrificial Altar of Progress?

Adjusting

I'm really glad I'm still working as a contractor for my former employer (translating), because otherwise I would definitely go crazy. It's hard to have a sense of purpose while waiting around for a job to open up. Good news is the station just posted an opening today, so hopefully things will speed up now. To be totally honest, I'm still a little bummed about not making the final in the Hearst competition. I'm just feeling it more tonight. Thank goodness for the county library! I officially have a card and have been reading a lot. Although I'm going to have to cut back on the dramatic books because I had awful nightmares the other day...

I bought a good windbreaker/rain jacket today, because I'll definitely be needing it here. The wind is crazy!

It's kind of ominous-sounding at times, honestly. This place is just so wild. Yes, there's a 55,000-people city, but it feels like nature is bent on pushing back just as hard as it can. At least we don't get tornadoes! Although given our proximity to Yellowstone we'd probably be the first wiped off the map in a catastrophic event. Do I sound grim enough for you? :) (sorry, we watched 2012 last night)

We're starting to make friends, slowly but surely. I'm hoping I'll be able to volunteer at the YW camp because that sounds like fun. Ah, and I'll be flying to Las Vegas for my little sister's high school graduation! I'm excited for her: she's singing the national anthem (which is kind of funny considering I'm pretty sure she'll have to learn the words... Growing up in a foreign country will do that!) But I'm sure she'll be fantastic.

Andrew is playing basketball with people from our stake right now, I'm glad he's making friends :) speaking of friends, it never gets old seeing cottontail rabbits in our yard. A big fat turkey even waddled through the other day! Pretty crazy.

And that's about it. Unfortunately I don't have anything very exciting to post about. Maybe I'll put up pictures of our temporary cozy country home :) We visited a SWEET apartment the other day. You guys, it has a fireplace! It was dreamy. And pricey. But man, I dream of cuddling up by the fire on those cold Casper winter days...

The trek West -- or North-East, rather. It certainly feels more Western though.

We are alive and well in Casper, Wyoming. It's still a little odd to think that this will be our home for the next three plus years... the city has 55 000 people, but it's the only real city for hundreds of miles around, so every once in a while if you look up you realize how easily nature could just press in a little more and snuff out any trace of civilization. No, I'm not being dramatic...

But let's start from the beginning. We were sad to leave Provo :(

The drive itself went quite well, other than the fact that the moving van Andrew drove couldn't go over 50 mph -- we were kind of slowing down traffic. Oh well. Communicating via walkie-talkie was fun though :) And I'll add that it was quite necessary because we didn't have any reception for a large part of the trip!

This is what the last third of our trek looked like:

We started to worry we were moving to a complete desert, but then we finally rounded a few bends (they call them mountains but they're more like hills) and arrived in Casper. It's not bad at all, quite green especially on the mountain, and it's almost always sunny. The North Platter River runs throughout the city and there's a path for several miles so we're itching to get some bikes now.

All sorts of critters live in our backyard: squirrels, rabbits, geese... it's a bit dusty, but the river makes up for it. We're excited to go rafting and also explore Casper Mountain. The city's not huge, for sure, and the lone mall is a bit... well, dead. But there are worse things. Hey, at least we have a Target!

look who came to visit!

Right now we're living in a house that belongs to the city - they rent out rooms to interns and incoming employees. So far we only have two roommates (another couple) and they're very nice. It's a bit on the edge of town but it's only a five minute drive anyway, and we're kind of liking living in the wild - it's very peaceful. As soon as Andrew signs a full-time contract though we'll get into an apartment (or potentially rent a house, but I hear that's near impossible to find around here). We have one place in mind that we really like, but for now we need to wait and see.  

Andrew started his internship on Monday and things are going well so far. He gets along just fine with the people in his office and he also found out there are more full-time positions opening up soon, so his chances of getting a full-time position just got better -- and he could have more options.

We went to city council meeting last night and boy was that fun!

It was the first hearing for a proposed smoking ban (an extension of a current public smoking ban) and some interesting characters came crawling out of the woodwork. Hitler and God were both brought into the discussion, and one lady accused the city council of using the same methods as Nazi Germany... there were reasonable people there too though, and honestly it was kind of fun to get a glimpse at the heart of Casper.

And you're probably wondering how my interview went. I think it went well. I could have maybe said more or something, but I believe I got my point across and he seemed impressed by my resume. I said one thing that may have come across awkwardly but otherwise it wasn't bad. He was very friendly at least. I left him my material and told him I was ready and just waiting to get to work... he seemed to like the fact that Andrew and I will likely be here more than just two years, too. There aren't any openings until July though, so now I just sort of have to wait... forced vacation I guess! And here I was all ready to get going. In the meantime I'll keep translating from home, and then call back as soon as they officially post the opening.

So overall, not a bad start. We're settling in nicely, and we really enjoyed church on Sunday - the people were very nice and welcoming, and it's just awesome to be in a family ward, finally. Well, I will add that we giggled when one lady quoted Mitt Romney in her talk...

So bottom line is things are not bad at all here. It still feels kind of small-town ish, which is a bit scary to me, but things couldn't be going much better for the both of us at this point, so it's all good. And we're going to have so much fun this summer rafting, hiking, biking and generally experiencing the great outdoors! (Let's not talk about winter yet, ok?)

Here we go

Well, here we are: commencement day. Tomorrow, we get our degrees and then it's off to...

That's right: Casper, Wyoming!

Andrew accepted an internship with the city's budget office that they very strongly suggested will turn into a job offer at the end of the summer. And I'm going to haul myself on over to their TV station and demand a job.

Is it out in the middle of nowhere? Yup.
Is it somewhat... savage country? Yup.
And don't start me on the fact that Casper, Wyoming is ranked at the very bottomy-bottom of the reporting food chain.

BUT considering the fact we wanted to go somewhere we both have job opportunities, it's actually not a bad deal. In fact, it's not a bad deal at all: we'll have jobs in the same city (which is AWESOME considering what we were starting to look at) and it might be kind of fun to live it up with the cowboys for a while. You gotta start somewhere! We also just found out what Andrew's starting salary would be, and we're both feeling really good about that... :)

Off we go to the Wild Wild West!

Hey look, we're grads:

Progress.. and awesome video

So I'm making progress. Finally. I'm praying that a woman I just talked to on the phone will agree to an on-camera interview -- she would be PERFECT. Everything else is actually close to wrapped up, which is miraculous at this point.

Also, my grandmother was called to be the primary pianist in my home ward -- and my aunt caught a piece of it! I love it :)
She was a concert pianist and taught children and adults for many years, but in the past years she couldn't play anymore for various health reasons. Lately though, she's started playing again, and it's a wonderful thing to see.

And check out my latest story -- a feature on community-supported agriculture.

Nothing too serious, but this is meant to be a feature, not an investigative report. The next two are the real deal though -- and I'm close to done on both of them! Hallelujah!

Lovely things

Yes, I'm alive. It's a miracle I'm finally posting here. Taking an extra job in the wee morning hours was a crazy decision, but I love doing what I love. You know.

Just wanted to share something beautiful. (You guys, I'm so hip, I'm posting about obscure foreign artists!)

But really, this is lovely. She is lovely.



Also, I just discovered this blog. I like the author, she is well-spoken (I suppose I should say well-written) and a lovely artist. I'm just full of inspiration these days I guess. Check her out.

And now I'll leave you because it's way past my bedtime... (I can't wait to have a normal schedule again...)

Oh, PS: I get to represent BYU in the TV hard news category of the Hearst Journalism Awards (with another girl from my program). That doesn't really mean too much, just that our news director chose who got to compete in it. But it does mean that I get a shot at it. Hey, it's the small victories.

First Day of Fake School

Well yeah: no classes, no homework. Just a sweet internship, anchoring, and a job I love!

Probably the only perk of getting up this early: watching the sun rise. Or sleeping on the bus. Or both.

Ringing in the New Year

Well here it is, 2012, a whole new year. It's going to be an exciting year, full of all sorts of adventures and not very defined quite yet. After April, our schedule is wide open... and we don't really know where we'll be. At the same time though, it's very invigorating. This year is not the same-old kind of year. It's a year where we will be deciding who we want to be, what our family will look like, we'll be starting "real life" and making all sorts of difficult decisions. I can't wait. And to start the year properly, I actually have made a few goals this year.

I want to write in my journal regularly, weekly being a ballpark goal. I need to keep better records and while this blog has helped to a degree, I want to record all of my impressions, not just the ones suitable for a public.

I also have a secret goal I can't tell you about, but it's a good one. I'll let you know when it's accomplished though.

I want to develop more charity. That means striving to become more Christlike, of course, but the way I hope to accomplish that in a very specific way is that I need to be kinder and more open to people; I need to relearn to make friends, to be more open to situations outside of my life bubble. This will definitely be the challenge of April and beyond, when we leave BYU.

I want to get into better shape. The tangible goal is to get to the gym at least three times a week and run my first 5k this year. (hey, you have to start somewhere. That would be a big deal for me) Oh, and have really awesomely toned arms. That would be nice.

And I want to develop my talents and continue to grow professionally. I'll be interning, working a new job and venturing into all sorts of professional endeavors for the next four months, but after that my goal is to keep those pencils sharp and find ways to stay active in my field.

There it is. In order to get it all off to a good start, here are a few useful tools for each of those goals:

How to pick a mentor - Solid professional advice

List of races in Utah - Anybody want to join me?

Journal writing prompts - These will be really useful for writing more meaningful journal entries, not just "today I ate candy and had a bad hair day." Also, the prompts and tips from the MWP Salon will be great resources.

Looking for a new year's gift to yourself? How about some beautiful writing on Mormon womanhood by Segullah.

And I'll be blogging all about our amazing Christmas break very soon, of course :)

Let's be honest though, whose life isn't crazy these days?

So my awesome Christmas break has turned into a stress-fest... including drowning in paperwork and uncertainty, making stressful decisions and initiating a minor encounter between the car and a cement post... Ahem.

But the good news is there's a point to all (well, most) of this stress: finalizing documents for my internship at KSL and most recently... prepping to anchor the morning news at Classical 89!

I'll be on air Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 AM (Yes, I have to get up very early... you're welcome, morning commuters.) You can tune in here.

The best part is I get paid to do it (Miserly student job pay, but hey, it's my first paid broadcasting gig!) and Classical 89 is a station I really like. My dad is so proud :)

So yeah, life is good, but I'm definitely ready for Friday to get here - then I really get an actual break, and we can focus on Christmas fun with my whole family!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love The Office?

I wish I were this creative. And that I had an arch-nemesis. Well maybe not, actually. Random story: a guy in my English class told everybody the story about his high school "arch-nemesis" stealing the girl he had a crush on... in complete seriousness. Somebody's been reading too much sci-fi... (Says the girl who posts star trek clips on her blog. Ahem)

Real news

That's what I did for tomorrow. I was at the Provo City Council about "what to do with Steve Turley"--I'll give you a hint: he didn't show up. Trepidating stuff (no, really).

And I met a real classy lady this evening. Cristina Flores from KUTV. This was kind of a big deal apparently, so all the SLC stations were there. As soon as they adjourned the meeting everyone rushed out to interview several key people and one lady was completely surrounded. I tried to squeeze my way in to get a good shot of her face, but try as I could I wasn't getting my mic close enough. Cristina Flores was right next to her interviewing her and motioned to me to hand her my mic, and there I had it: great audio. I was really touched that she would go out of her way to lend me a hand (quite literally). Especially when you expect angry cut-throat people (and let me tell you, trying to squeeze my camera in there was pretty scary. You have to get aggressive...), it was nice to have a friendly face in the crowd. She certainly won my respect tonight.

Hey, don't forget to watch tomorrow at noon! :)

Normandy Continued

Hello everyone!

This is Lydia's lesser half here to update you on our French adventure. Last I checked, she left you stranded in the middle of our Normandy trip. After our wonderful day at the Mont St. Michel and our visit to the Bayeux Tapestry, we began our 6-hour tour of the D-Day landing beaches. If you ever come visit the Normandy beaches, personally I recommend at least one full day. Anything less just doesn't do it justice. Also, although the tours are often expensive, if you can find a good tour guide it is worth it. Since I'm kind of a history nut AND I'd already been here before, I was the tour guide.

We started out our day at Sainte-Mere-Eglise. 

 

This was the first city liberated by Allied forces following the D-Day landing. Here we talked about how France fell to Germany so quickly and the status of Allied and German troops in the area prior to D-Day. I talked about the allied air invasion (101st and 82 Airborne divisions) landing behind German lines before the main assault on the beaches, and a whole bunch of other really interesting stuff. If you pay for my flight out to France, maybe I'll take you on the same tour.

After this visit, we traveled about 8 kilometers away to see a small 12th century chapel in Angoville-au-Plain. We visited this chapel on my first tour here and I thought it was so unique that I brought everyone back. Two American medics set up a field first aid station in the chapel and treated 80 German and American troops while the fight continued outside. The town changed hands three times before the Americans took it over for good. The interior still has blood stains, bullet holes, and now has stained glass windows honoring the two medics who stayed there.

German head wound

We picnic-ed at Utah Beach which was just a few kilometers away from Angoville. Utah Beach is undergoing some museum renovations so we couldn't really do much there, but I gave our group an idea of what the allied battle plan was, how the German defenses were set up, and how the landing at Utah beach went. Utah Beach was one of the two American invasion beaches.

Following Utah, we drove to Pointe-du-Hoc, a cliffside where three companies of Army Rangers climbed up the cliff, took the gun battery at the top, and held off German reinforcements until Allied troops came to relieve them. There were originally 225 soldiers - by the time they were relieved only 90 were still alive and capable of fighting. The bluff is covered with craters from bombardments leading up to the Normandy invasion. We couldn't spend a lot of time here which is unfortunate because this is probably the most "interactive" of all the visits we made (bunkers, craters, a gorgeous view, etc).

Omaha beach was just down the road. This was the "worst" beach for all the allied troops where virtually nothing went right. When you think of the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, this is the beach you should think about. To compare, Utah beach was taken with less than 200 casualties. Omaha beach had over 6,000. Here I dissected the Allied attack plan and showed where things went wrong and why it took so long and so many lives to take the beach.

Finally, we ended the day at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. We easily spent two hours here and just took time to reflect on what we'd seen, visit their self-tour (which built upon everything I'd already told them) and then spent a lot of time walking among the graves. It was our pre-Memorial Day celebration. It is a beautiful location: very serene and a wonderful tribute to everyone who is buried there. God bless America.

Lydia liked the "portable" radio station

In other news, my internship at the Embassy has been exciting. I'm working on events that should go a long way in connecting American businesses and European service providers in the Green Energy, Aerospace, and general business sectors. Basically, we team up with corporate partners to create events where businesses can exchange information, market expertise, and financing options while we provide market research and regulatory expertise. The only downside is that I won't be here to see most of my projects come to fruition.

I got to see Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Ambassador's residence the other day. She gave a brief speech about how she appreciates the staff at the American Tri-mission in Paris (State, UNESCO, and one other that I can't remember, maybe OECD). It was just a simple meet and greet, but it was something that doesn't happen every day. Yesterday we had the official Marine Corps silent drill platoon come and drill for the Ambassador, international politicians and military guests. It was quite impressive. After the drill was over, the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps came and played some patriotic anthems and - you'll never guess - "Don't Rain on My Parade" which was doubly funny because it was threatening rain that morning and it just isn't something you'd expect from such a formal band. I've often said that I don't like marching bands, but this one - though perhaps not technically better than others - actually makes sense from the uniforms to the marching to the perfect formations. It was a thing of beauty. Afterwards they all came out and mingled with us on the Ambassador's lawn and I spoke with a Lance Corporal in the silent drill team. He was from Phoenix and quite an impressive guy. It was a nice way to celebrate Memorial Day, especially in a country like France where our soldiers came twice to serve with European allies in the cause of freedom.

I applied for my first full time position ever. Though I don't particularly want to work for the federal government, a position had opened up as a commercial specialist in the consulate in Bordeaux. It's something that Lydia and I have long considered, so even though I still have one year of school left and I don't have a work permit for France, I decided to apply anyway and get my name out there.  It also helps that the job was specifically a training level position, NOT in Paris (Paris is nice, but I'd take a smaller city, especially Bordeaux, any day), and it is close to Lydia's family. Plus, it is good practice to revamp resumes and cover letters for different jobs. My career hunt starts in earnest in August as Operation Become a Real Person begins.

Since you are all bored now, I'll sign off and let Lydia keep posting more interesting things. All the best,

Andrew

Trying to make something of yourself

Got several uninterrupted hours with my husband today and yesterday, which is something that doesn't tend to happen on days that aren't Sunday. That was wonderful of course. (That's also why I just barely finished writing my stupid PR paper. I really shouldn't complain actually, because at least the professor is very clear about what he expects and all I have to do is write section by section and it's done. But it still takes time.)

And we have a four-day weekend coming up, complete with a trip to see the family Las Vegas, so that too is great.

So really, I shouldn't be saying depressing things right now, but...

Do you ever feel like you're a bum? I do, all the time. I'm pretty lazy actually. That's probably why I dislike homework so much, why it's taken me well over 4 years to graduate, why I need to lose 15 pounds, why I still haven't had a single internship... the list could go on forever.

I have my moments, but they tend to be when I'm forced to do something, and then I kick myself into gear and get it done, but apart from those moments, well, I'm a bum. I once heard that to see what a person is truly made of, you should look at what they do when they have down time or don't have any obligations. I must really be a bum.

We're reading Faust in my English class right now, and in the professor's words, Mephistopheles' main goal is to get Faust to the point where he is so saturated with worldly pleasures and distractions that he becomes content, or idle. Once he becomes satisfied, he will no longer have the desire to act, and we all know what idle hands do... I'm sure this is what we're talking about when we speak of slowly being lulled into a false sense of security.

But who'd have thought it would be this hard to move yourself to action, every minute of every hour of every day? How much time can I humanly waste?

Creativity... or lack thereof

I haven't touched the sewing machine since... Christmas break. And even then, it was to fix Andrew's shirts (that look fantastic by the way). I have simply got no inspiration right now. But do you want to know why I really don't sew anymore?

School.

It sucks the life right out of you. Seriously, it does. Sometimes I feel like I'm growing and sometimes, it just feels like a long, long to-do list that has serious consequences when you ignore it. (All things considered, it's probably a good thing I'm not sewing because then I wouldn't have time for school).

I'd call it senioritis, but I've had it since kindergarten.

I like certain things about school. I thoroughly enjoy learning, I love to read (interesting things), and I feel very motivated when I'm given a chance to push myself and achieve things I've never done before.

However, the moments where I'm actually learning and being pushed seem few and far between. School tends to just plain bore me, and it's getting to a point where, outside of my broadcast classes, I feel like my time would be better put to use job-shadowing, interning, and generally getting myself out of Provo and into the job. Unfortunately, I still have two semesters left and a slightly mind-numbing job.

But in the end, I really can't complain, because I am getting an excellent education in a program that is reputed for students that come out of the program with real experience and skills that they already know how to apply. And I have a job that pays the bills, and my colleagues really are the best. Sigh.

But it's so BOOOOOOOOOORING sometimes!



Disclaimer: this post may or may not be prompted by the fact that I am procrastinating doing pointless homework... although I suppose it doesn't count as pointless since it's worth quite a few of those.