These Pages Are Not For You

“You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you."

-Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Random Facts About Me

I thought I'd spontaneously compile a list of random things about me. Many of these things I hadn't remembered about myself until I tried to write them down. Not that you'll really want to know these things... You've probably never heard of such strange things. However, I do think you should make a list of random things about yourself as well. I think you'll like it very much.

I love the number 7. I always seem to gravitate towards it.
I had a huge dinosaur fetish as a kid. Clothes, books, toys, blankets, costumes, birthday parties. You name it. It was all about dinosaurs.
I love ancient architecture.
Someday I want to travel outside the country. I want to see the world. My heart yearns for it.
One time I was stung by a man o' war jellyfish on both my feet in Hawaii while bodysurfing. It hurt SO very much.
My heart belongs to the ocean. The beach is my love. No kidding.
I am obsessed with English dramas.
I am also obsessed with choral music.
I love seeing people wear white. They are beautiful.
I love chicken pot pie so very much. It's my favorite comfort food.
I could spend all day at an art museum.
I lost all my baby teeth quite early and got my full set of braces when I was ten.
Colorful sunsets make my heart swell up with pure joy.
I have an irrational fear of flying bugs. I'm working on it.
I have killed more scorpions and spiders than I have fingers and toes, though.
I voluntarily listen to the classical radio station. Yeah, I'm one of those people. ;)
I can talk with my mouth closed. You can almost understand me when I do.
Many times have I had the urge to abandon my plans and become a traveling cheese monger or music critic. Or both.
Jazz and big band music makes my soul dance.
I can separately extend each one of my toes. I kinda pride myself in my flexible toes, actually.
I secretly love my Biology lab and lecture classes...
I am a roller coaster enthusiast.
I am also a Disney enthusiast. How did I not mention that sooner?
I know nearly every Disney song ever made.
I love Disneyland.
For the first 8 years of my life, I didn't see more than three stars at a time because of LA air pollution.
I now marvel at the stars whenever I see them.
I have a piece of graphite stuck in my hand from accidentally stabbing myself in 8th grade English.
I play the cello, and I'm currently messing around on the guitar.
I love Broadway musicals so very much. The ones I have seen/loved/memorized include Lion King, Les Miserables, The Secret Garden, Newsies, Into the Woods, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Little Women, White Christmas, West Side Story, The Little Mermaid, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, 13 the Musical, Footloose, Bye Bye Birdie, The Sound of Music, A Little Princess, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, Tarzan, Fiddler on the Roof, Wicked, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Shrek the Musical, Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Annie, Sister Act, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Hairspray, South Pacific, Hello Dolly, and Pirates of Penzance. I love them.
I can't stop singing. I sing all the time.
I can think of a song for almost anything.
I love spring and fall.
I love nice male eyebrows and jawlines. There's something about those two features.
I have never been very good at tongue twisters.
My eyes have been gradually changing every day this past year from blue to greenish. They aren't just fading from one color to the next, however. The top of the iris is turning yellowish and brownish while the bottom is still a grayish blue. They are a strange mix in the middle. I can't even name the color. It's weird. I don't know what to think.
I love playing capture the flag.
I love it when babies smile in their sleep. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
My feet are ridiculously ticklish.
For 10/12 months of the year, I don't wear any shoes other than flip flops (unless it is Sunday or I am forced to).
I was born in Wisconsin. They'd call me a regular cheesehead.
I don't like doing my hair, but alas, I have a mane. Thus, in order to be presentable I must reluctantly help it out a bit.
I love salads with blue cheese and pecans in them.
Fresh raw milk is, in my opinion, the best thing ever. It's even better when you are friends with the goats or the cows who gave it to you. :)
I tend to be a Grammar Nazi in most situations.
I have a ring I've been wearing for the past four years. I think the tan line is permanent now...
I love singing in large choirs with full orchestras. It is truly magical.
I love watching people laugh. When people laugh, they are so attractive.
I love laughing and smiling lots.
I once had an amazing hazelnut brittle chocolate bar at a factory in Seattle. It was the best chocolate I've ever had.
Food is on my mind right now.
Some of the best things I have ever eaten were in Louisiana. I cannot decide between the following:
Alligator meat and fried vegetables cooked by my mom in an RV and served at a random picnic table in the middle of nowhere (and it was incredible), fish cioppino served family style with freshly baked baguettes at this one fancy restaurant in the middle of the wooded bayou, and samples of over a hundred artisan cheeses and that sandwich I had for lunch at this shop in New Orleans. (The bread was amazing. You know how bread sometimes takes away from the overall success of the sandwich? Well, this bread was flavorful and chewy and warm. It MADE the sandwich. It was also huge. All the samples of artisan cheeses were part of this favorite food experience.)Also New Orleans beniets, free pralines, gumbo, and fried frog legs are delicious.
Someone made me an apple pie today and a friend brought it to my house. I was unbelievably happy, for apple pie is so wonderful. 'Tis my favorite kind of dessert pie.
I once owned a cannibal goldfish names Sparkles.
When people have good posture when sitting, I am greatly impressed.
I've only rock climbed once, but I love it so very much.
I've also only been bowling once, but I love it also.
I've never been ice skating, yet I am secretly worried I will fail miserably if I ever were to go.
I would absolutely love to go ice skating sometime in the near future.
I am obsessed with classical music composed for piano and orchestra.
I love to hear trumpets play "Taps."
If I were to convert to band instead of orchestra, I fantasize about taking up the french horn.
I think hand holding is the greatest thing. I'd do it all the time with people if it wasn't weird.
Speaking of hands, my pinky fingers are runts compared to my other ones. I realized this while learning hand anatomy in a charcoal drawing class. If my pinkies were normal sized, I bet I could reach a comfortable 10th on the piano, maybe even an 11th, and my octaves would be invincible.
I keep every letter or card ever written or given to me.
During finals week, I tend to have a collection of at least five or six mugs on my desk at one time from all the hot chocolate and herbal tea I drink.
Waterfalls bring me joy.
I like skipping. I probably look ridiculous, but it makes me happy. :)
I love finding faces in the mountains on road trips.
When my extended family gathers, we'll all sit around after dinner and sing cowboy songs in complex harmony as loud as we can while my grandpa wails on the guitar. I love it. One of these days, I'll learn all their verses so I can pass them down to my children too.
If you were to ask me what superpower I'd like to have if anything, my knee-jerk response would probably be flight. I often imagine what it would be like. (If I were to sit and ponder about it, I would answer differently. I am not sure what my answer would be, yet.)
I love hearing little children sing. It makes me so happy.
I love you.

That is all.

A Poem: The Ladder of St. Augustine

I had an epiphany while reading this poem today. 

The Ladder of St. Augustine

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,

That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,

That with the hour begin and end,

Our pleasures and our discontents,

Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,

That makes another's virtues less;

The revel of the ruddy wine,

And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than truth;

The hardening of the heart, that brings

Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,

That have their root in thoughts of ill;

Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will; —

All these must first be trampled down

Beneath our feet, if we would gain

In the bright fields of fair renown

The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;

But we have feet to scale and climb

By slow degrees, by more and more,

The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,

When nearer seen, and better known,

Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear

Their solid bastions to the skies,

Are crossed by pathways, that appear

As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,

We may discern — unseen before —

A path to higher destinies,

Nor deem the irrevocable Past

As wholly wasted, wholly vain,

If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Speak Your Truth

A teacher called on me in a class today and said, 

"Speak your truth, Olivia."

I voiced my idea and thought on the topic we were discussing.

The teacher thanked me for speaking and went on to explain to the others why my words were true.

Apparently, I spoke my truth well. 

But I wondered something.

What makes it MY truth?

Shouldn't it be our truth? Or rather, THE truth?

If it is our truth or the truth, wouldn't we all have to have accepted it as truth before it can be labelled so?

Is my truth different than YOUR truth?

Perhaps what I consider to be MY truth is not aligned with THE truth.

Can I possess truth? Can it be mine? Can I make it mine? Can I create truth?

Is truth that tangible?

In the state of nature, a state of perfect freedom, anything you add your own labor to becomes yours.

If I add my work and efforts to a principle or a truth, it could become mine. Couldn't it?

I've tested it. I've experimented and acted upon it. I've lived it.

If I've done these things, it could be MY truth. 

What about THE truth, though?

Can there be many types of truth?

Or are all truths part of THE truth?

There must be an overarching truth. There is. 

Actually, I know there is. 

God's truth is THE truth.

HIS truth is above the world's truth.

HIS truth I will proclaim.

Can I have HIS truth? Can I make it MY truth too? 

By proclaiming it, it becomes part of me. HIS truth can become MY truth if I act upon it.

Yet the entire world needs it. We must make it OUR truth. 

We'll bring the world HIS truth.

We must speak the truth. We must live the truth. 

How else can we be sure of it? How else can it be truth?

We must speak. We must speak HIS truth.

But who is We? Why, it's us. 

You and I. 

Seekers of truth. Disciples of Christ. Human beings with a divine potential.

THE truth is eternal. Eternal truths are what life is created from.

THE truth will make you free. HIS truth will set you free

Can we make it OUR truth? I don't want to be alone. 

But wait. 

If MY truth is HIS truth, I am never alone. 

If MY truth is HIS truth, I have nothing to fear. 

My truth must be God's truth, for HIS truth is THE truth. 

God is all-powerful, all-knowing.

Of course HIS truth is THE truth.

But if OUR truth is HIS truth, we can save the world. 

Speak your truth, my friend.