Life Lessons and Chihuly

*All pictures were taken at the Dallas Arboretum.  The glass statues are by a man named Dale Chihuly.  You can check out the artist's website here: http://www.chihuly.com/.  This exhibit is bright and colorful and cool and weird and I highly recommend seeing it.

Life Lesson # 1.  Never take yourself too seriously.  Always be able to laugh at yourself.
Life Lesson # 2.  Learn how to write a good paper.  It is infinitely more beneficial than learning Calculus.  I took Calculus in high school.  I might as well have been trying to learn Martian.  In fact, I probably would have been better off trying to learn Martian.  I think I'm more likely to be abducted by aliens than to find a real world situation in which Calculus is actually necessary.
Life Lesson # 3.  Listen to people who are smarter than you.  I'm a stubborn person and I rarely take advice.  I can't tell you how much time I've wasted doing things my way only to find that someone, years ago, was actually right and that if I'd even considered listening to them, just to try something out, I would have discovered something new and useful a lot sooner.

Life Lesson # 4.  Don't use a pair of contact lenses longer than the recommended two weeks.
Life Lesson # 5.  Always, ALWAYS, trust your gut instinct.  Whenever I don't, I end up getting myself into some kind of mess.
Life Lesson # 6.  The best way to take the interesting out of a really interesting subject is to write an academic paper about it.

Life Lesson # 7.   Learn how to do percentages.  Unlike Calculus, you will actually use percentages in the real world.  I can't do percentages, so I really encourage this one.
Life Lesson # 8.  Cheeto Puffs > Regular Cheetos.
Life Lesson # 9.  God has a sense of humor.  He thinks He's really funny.

Life Lesson # 10.  If you've lived in Texas your entire life, feel free to assume that you can not drive in snow.  
Life Lesson # 11.  Don't take Hydrocodone on an empty stomach. 
Life Lesson # 12.  Movies are almost never better than books.  A lot of them are equally enjoyable, however.

Life Lesson # 13.  Take every opportunity to listen to music.
Life Lesson # 14.  Roller blading is easier than roller skating.  Both are easier than ice skating.
Life Lesson # 15.  Whoever told me that bugs are more scared of me than I am of them LIED.

Life Lesson #16.  "You'll never find it if you're looking for it." When my class took our senior trip to Pensacola, Florida, I spent the better part of my time on the beach looking for sea shells.  Our last morning there, my friends and I woke up really early to take one last sunrise stroll along the beach.  I lingered behind to take pictures of course.  While I walked, a wave washed across my feet.  I looked down and saw something bright and orange beneath the water.  Anyone who's been to Pensacola knows how clear the water is there.  Without thinking about it or rolling up my sleeve, I reached down into the water and pulled out this perfect orange shell.  Hadn't even been looking for it.  It was just there.
Life Lesson #18.  Learn to count.
Life Lesson # 19. Everything I need to know in life, I learned from the Magic School Bus.  "Take chances.  Make mistakes.  Get messy."

Life Lesson # 20.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned in my three years working as a counselor at All Saints Camp was to trust.  I'm not by nature a patient person.  I want things to happen exactly when I think I'm ready for them and then I get disappointed when they don't.  Two years ago, however, we were all sitting around a camp fire and listening to one of the visiting priests talk about the Tower of Babel.  I can't remember everything he said, but I do remember the message he was trying to convey.  "When God wants something to happen, He makes it happen."  At that moment, I felt that God was speaking directly to me, telling me to stop worrying about things that haven't happened yet.  If it's right, it will.  That's not to say we can all just sit around and do nothing and wait for things to happen.  But it does give me a lot of reassurance. 

BONUS LIFE LESSON:

Contrary to what they teach you in first grade, it is NOT always "My friend and I."  For example, "This is important to Bob and I" is WRONG.  Please spread the word!  http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/i-or-me

Keep an eye out for future fun filled entries such as 20 Things I Wish Every Guy Knew.

*All photographs © copyright by Jacqueline E. Smith.

Catching Up

I've been wanting to write a new post for a while.  I have a lot of new pictures that I want to share.  I also really wanted to have something profound to say to go along with them.  I've come to realize, however, that when you try to be profound, you rarely, if ever, are.  That, like so many other things, can not be forced.  So, instead of writing some grand, earth-moving entry, I'm just going to post my pictures and write as I go along and see what happens.  Spontaneity is more fun anyway.

I guess the real first thing of significance that I've been wanting to write about has been my experience reading The Hunger Games.  I earned my Master's also, but sadly, that wasn't as life affirming as reading those books.  They were incredible.  I loved the characters, I loved the setting, I loved the way nothing ever happened the way I expected it to, and I loved the way the books made me think.  Definitely the best series I've read since Harry Potter.  My sister had been trying to convince me to read them for ages, but for some reason, I was reluctant.  I'd seen the trailer for the movie and thought it looked weird and sci-fi-ish.  If you know me at all, you know science fiction really isn't my thing.  I've never even seen the original Star Wars trilogy (I kind of want to, but Yoda really freaks me out).

Anyway, once the Hunger Games movie came out, my sister told me I was not allowed to see the movie until I'd read the books.  I picked up the first one, read the first chapter, and thought, "Wow, this is depressing.  I don't like this at all."  My sister just told me I had to keep reading.  I ended up reading all three books in two days.  They were fantastic.  I was amazed that I could love a book series so much and not envy the characters one bit.  Usually when I read a really good book, I think something like, "Wow, I wish I could go to Hogwarts."  Not with the Hunger Games.  No one in their right mind would ever want to live in a place like Panem.  That's not to say, however, that I didn't have a fantastic time running around a bunch of nature preserves with my camera and pretending that I was actually Katniss and that my camera was a bow. 

... I'm cool, I swear. 

   

The second thing I've been wanting to blog about is the Pilgrimage to Scotland that my sister and I took with our church last summer.  I've been wanting to write it for a while, but every time I try, I get really nostalgic and end up eating chocolate and listening to The Lord of the Rings soundtrack on repeat.  So I guess there was really no point to this little paragraph.  

Finally, I've really been wanting to write about the future.  Not my plans really, but more about the things I've learned trying to figure everything out.  I realize, however, that that topic has the potential to get really deep and depressing and that's not what I want for this blog.  This is a photography blog.  It's supposed to be bright and colorful and fun; a place to escape the turmoil and pressure of the real world.  Then again, it is comforting to know that you aren't alone in Limbo.  I know a lot of people, myself included, are working on finding their place in the world.  It can be confusing and stressful, and more than often I find myself wondering what the heck I think I'm doing.             

I'd like to end this entry, not only with an egret flying off to new metaphorical horizons, but with a Bible verse.  Specifically, the verse my class selected to be our senior verse during out last year of high school.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." ~ Philippians 4: 6-7 

*All photographs © copyright by Jacqueline E. Smith.