That one time I was at a podium.

This year, San Diego State University released a study about our generation finding narcissism and entitlement to be two of the features that describe us best. People born after 1982 are said to be part of the most self-absorbed generation in recent history. I didn’t believe it at first, and you may not either. But I recently realized…it might not be all bad.

I first heard about this phenomenon straight from the mouths of my teachers. Hardly a semester went by in college where one of my professors didn’t express worry that our generation is turning out to be too self-involved, or how that is going to reflect on our country. They would say, “You kids are smart, but you know you’re smart. That’s the problem.” I didn’t really buy it.

But then…I took a look at my blog.

I started my blog in March of 2005. I named it “Astral Weeks” after a Van Morrison song I felt defined my existence. My first entry is 762 words of descriptive prose about what it feels like to return home after spring break. The next entry includes about 10 paragraphs on how devastatingly boring it is to do taxes. The entries go on, and on, and on about the minute details and intricate elements of anything in my life.

So, we’re a little self-involved? Maybe. Ok, probably. But that’s not all we are.

In four years at the University, I have seen examples that take the notion of our allegedly selfish generation and throw it out the window, every day. I had the privilege of seeing students in classes and at our student newspaper that blow my mind with their dedication and the quality of work they produce. The amount of activities and opportunities students at this school pack into their schedules oftentimes comes at the expense of their own sleep and health.

We’re hard on ourselves. And we want to do well. A lot of that stems from the positive encouragement we were given growing up. While we may be described as more self-involved than our parents were, there’s one thing that we can be sure of. - we can use this to our advantage, and especially to the advantage of the world around us. Someone recently reminded me “to those who much is given, much is expected.”

At this age, it sometimes feels like it’s difficult to create real, positive change because no matter how much we want to deny it, we are still so very naïve. No matter how much we’ve been taught, how much we’ve absorbed or how much we’ve experienced in our lives, we’ve still got so far to go. To be naïve is to be generally thought of as showing a lack of experience, wisdom or judgment. But instead of cowering behind that or hoping it goes away soon, I think we should celebrate it. Why? Because we can be hopeful. We can hope for anything we want. We can hope to be the green generation who cleans up the environmental mistakes of those that came before us. We can hope to solve issues of violence, poverty and injustice. We can hope to create, foster, promote, and live peace. We not only get to believe that our generation is going to fix the world, but we have to try, and if we’re lucky, we’ll never stop trying.

So be idealistic. Be hopeful. Continue to try new things and invent new solutions to the problems all around us. Continue to learn and crave more and more education, whatever form that comes in. Your mind is ready for more. Feed it.

And that’s the key word – more. Now is the time to go crazy – take chances. But I don’t mean crazy in the sense that we’ve probably experienced the word so far, specifically on Thursday nights. I’m talking about everything from moving to a big city and working your way up a national nonprofit to braving a small Minnesota suburb to work at a community newspaper. You know what taking a chance means for you, so do it. How are we going to know what’s right for us, what we’re supposed to be doing, and how we can contribute the most to the world around us, if we never take chances?

As CLA students, you should realize by now that we’re bred for just that – for change, and for taking chances. If I can say one thing that my classes have given to me, whether they were classes about journalism, math or Walt Disney, it’s the ability to be this: versatile. I currently live with three people that switched out of very particular majors in the Institute of Technology during college. Before the switch, they knew exactly what they were going to be – civil engineer, mechanical engineer, and physicist. Now, they could be anything: speech coach, environmental researcher, NBC executive, and they know that. Their futures could hold whatever they want.

So I guess what I’m wondering is, what are you feeling today? Are you scared? I am. I’m scared of stepping outside the University umbrella. I’m scared of what it’s going to be like to have a “real live job.” But we can’t stay in college forever. It’s too late to go back. We’re in the matching outfits. We’re brushing the tassels from our faces. And you know what? Somewhere, deep inside the folds of our gowns, we know we’re ready.

But we can’t forget, for one minute, that we are the privileged ones. We are college graduates. A majority of us grew up with parents that not only believed in us, but took pains to make sure we knew how special we are. For those of you that didn’t have parents like that, there was hopefully someone along the way who believed in you, whether that was a teacher, an older sibling, a neighbor, anyone. And while it’s easy to bask in the glory that is us right now, on this day …those are the people that we should really be thinking about. This isn’t just our graduation. This is a victory and a monumental event for anyone who has cared about us.

There are so many people around this world that would kill for the education that we’ve received. Remember this as you’re selling back your books, starting your first day at your new jobs, or reflecting on the end to your college career. Remember to be thankful for the protected environment that we live in, and the safe, successful semesters that we have been able to complete, unlike some of our peers around the country and around the world.

Parents, grandparents, siblings, professors, administrators and friends – thank you, to say the least. Thank you for believing in us. This is your day too.

If there is one resounding message I could leave with you today, it would be to not forget who helped you get where you are. A college education is the best present anyone could give to you, and the best present you could give to yourselves. Take the positive reinforcement you received, take the knowledge you’ve gained over the years, and take your college degree and use it to give back. Don’t ever forget the breaks you’ve been given and the heights you’ve achieved because of the understanding, supportive and inspiring people in your lives. And above all else, be that kind of a person to others.

People may say we’re narcissistic, and that might have been true in the past, but we don’t have to be that way now. Let’s continue to learn, continue to grow, and continue to let our purpose be helping those around us. We’ve been able to practice this in our college setting, but now our arena has expanded, and we are capable of real change and real good. Don’t ever forget that.

Congratulations parents, a job well done students, and good luck.

Thank you.

Movie musings

Remember when I said I could tell you about seeing the most disturbing two movies I have ever seen in my life? Well, I'm going to talk about it on the radio tonight (here: 16 minutes in) so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts with you.

Basically, the big movies this year are unforgivably depressing. Movies that win big in the Oscars are usually kind of downers – last year we had No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, La Vie en Rose, Michael Clayton, etc., but this year, the movies I’ve seen have just left me unable to even express thought, I mean the topics and plots were so dejecting and gruesome that I think we are seriously reaching new highs, or lows, rather, in our Oscar nominees.

Let’s start off with Revolutionary Road. It depicts 1950s American life based on a newly married couple who move to the suburbs to start their family. The movie is based on a novel written by Richard Yates, who described the central theme as “most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy”. The movie is good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s fight after fight after fight and they escalate all the way up to a husband-on-wife screaming death chase through the woods. I won’t tell you how it ends, but let’s just say there is blood involved.

Alright and then we’ve got The Wrestler. The previews led me to believe I was in for a feel-good movie where Mickey Rourke’s character finally gives up wrestling to salvage his relationship with his long lost daughter. After seeing Revolutionary Road the day before, I felt like I deserved a softy. But a softy it…was…not. I should have seen the gory-factor coming since the film is directed by the guy who did Requiem for a Dream. But I have to say the famous “biting the pavement” scene from Requiem hardly was a match for the literal savage beatings the audience witnesses the aging wrestler go to through keep supporting himself. The physical trauma he goes through, however, is barely a match for the way the movie makes you feel about your own life. As we were leaving the theater after seeing it, one of my friends said he felt like there were bugs crawling all over him.

And it doesn’t get much happier. Milk left me enraged for weeks, not only about the injustice of our own history but also the fact that I had never even heard about the events that happened in the movie. Rachel Getting Married, which was one of my favorite movies of the year, stars Anne Hathaway as a recovering crack addict who essentially murdered her little brother and has to awkwardly face her family on the day of her sister’s wedding as she tries not to ruin the entire thing with her loud-mouthed and offensive existence. And of course Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York features a theater director with depression and a failing, dying body trying to make something of himself. You can guess whether he does or not.

Even superhero movies aren’t escaping this trend of shockingly bleak films. We all saw The Dark Knight and it seemed much more psychological thriller than uplifting heroism. Even Batman can’t escape the tragedy of his own ideals and comes off more like a depressed cancer patient than a lovable hero. It seems like this movie, although totally awesome, is a far cry from the downright comedic 1960s television series Batman used to be.

So why? Does sadness sell? Are happy endings trite? I guess if nothing else, we know depression wins awards. So as you’re catching up on the award nominees that you’ve missed over the past year, get ready to strap on your sad face, pop a Prozac, and remember that there is life after movies.

The snowy death I almost died.

Today, on this -5 degree winter Wednesday, I could tell you about a lot of things.

I could tell you about my third tire that I have popped within the past month (I allegedly live next-door to a nail factory).

I could tell you about seeing the most disturbing two movies I have ever seen in my life this week (Revolutionary Road and The Wrestler).

I could tell you about how I recently learned to purl, and thus my knitting possibilities have wildly opened up to the great knitting world of wonder (hats and ribbed scarves here I come!).

But what I really want to tell you about is how I almost died 21 days ago.

My roommate has a friend. This friend has a bunch of college buddies. These buddies were all going on a ski trip to the Lutsen Mountains, located on Lake Superior’s North Shore. They thought it would be nice to have a couple girls along on the trip. I told them I’m not much of a skier, but when they promised me all the equipment needed and they made the arrangements for driving and lodging, I couldn’t resist. As a perpetual trip planner, the prospect of being able to simply tag along with someone else’s perfectly-planned trip sounded to me like a breath of fresh, frosty air.

In a van and a car we drove five of the happiest hours of my life north to our destination. We sang, we ate, we mused, we knitted, we told stories. Was I slightly carsick? Yes, of course I was – I’m me. But a slight tum ache was hardly a match for the giddiness I felt about our trip. It just felt so good to…get out there. Anticipation grew all around me since we had only one night’s sleep standing in our way of hitting the slopes first thing in the morning, and I was only slightly concerned that I was the only one who technically didn’t know how to make my way down a mountain on skis.

Morning arrived. The boys leapt from their beds, raced to the window, and wiggled and jumped around, elated that the night had dropped 15 inches of snow on us, on top of the many inches of snow that had already piled up the previous day. We dressed, loaded on our gear, ensured that rarely a speck of skin was exposed to the -40 below wind chill, and crowded into the cars to head toward the hills.

Two of my friends strapped on my boots and fitted my skis while I stood like a toddler, dutifully placing my feet in the positions in which they instructed me. I breathed a sigh of relief when one of the boys suggested we hit up “Big Bunny”, one of the beginner hills right by the lodge. I clumsily ambled over to the chairlift, and boarded my chair successfully. As the lift neared its exit, I scooted toward the edge of my chair, arranged my poles to the side, and then proceeded to fall flat off the ski lift on my face.

But don’t worry – I got the hang of it. I wiggled out of the way, stood up, and briefly figured out how to ski, with the help of the expert skiers I gone on the trip with. Not to brag, but I pretty much kicked Big Bunny’s ass. If nothing else, I definitely made her my B. Here’s the thing though. We only did Big Bunny once before the boys were ready to move on to bigger and better hills.

A couple green circles, some blue squares, and I was still doing ok. I learned how to turn, and I would fall back on the reliable pizza stance if I ever needed to slow down. Yes, I still have weird knee issues from putting such awkward strain on my knees that weekend, but c’mon. A girl has got to slow down if she needs to. But sometimes, even pizza is no match for the velocity one can find herself in whilst going down certain hills…

Big Bunny was part of a stretch of mountains that is very beginner-friendly. That, of course, is the kind of mountain that I should definitely stay on, but my friends found it very important for us all to stick together. That meant that when they were ready to take a special ski trail over to a stretch of much more difficult mountains, I was coming with. I had heard rumors that there wasn’t really a hill over there that didn’t eventually turn into a black diamond, but they insisted that I would be fine.

The first unforgivably steep hill I approached made me fall instantly. I fell straight down like a little kid when you pick it up but it doesn’t want you to pick it up so it wiggles down to the floor, leaving you dumbfounded as to how a 50-pound thing could outsmart you. I then slid down the rest of the hill slowly, and in perfect control, on my butt, which was totally not a big deal. No pain, I didn’t make a scene, and only one teenage snowboarder yelled at me for being in her way.

But the thing with these hills that get steeper and steeper as you go down them, is that you gain momentum. And when someone who is as bad a skier as I am gains momentum, they start to lose their ability to turn. And if the person is going so fast that they can’t really turn, you can sure as frick bet that “pizza” is a literal impossibility.

What I’m trying to tell you is that one of the black diamond mountains I went on was so steep that I erratically flew straight down it, gaining and gaining speed over what felt like five minutes until I reached the most steep part at the bottom and found myself barreling toward a group of 40 people waiting in line to get on the chair lift. Right before I reached the group, and thus killed everyone in sight by my unpredictable and uncontrollable speed, I gallantly hurled myself into the nearest snow bank, rolled at the speed of light about 20 feet, skidded another 10, and then landed, poles and skiis scattered, body in spread-eagle position, on the bank of the snow at the feet of those 40 skiers, their mouths agape, staring at the spectacle that was me.

I stayed there for a while, maybe two minutes, not moving. I noticed people trying not to notice me. A snowboarder picked up my poles and reverently laid them at my side, not uttering a word.

Ironically, but mostly unbelievably, my only wound from the weekend was a tiny scratch I got from the hotel room table while playing cards.

MPR News: White Bear Lake Driving Tour

My mouth stings.

Everyone has New Years resolutions. I recently scribbled down ten myself. At the top of the list, before I could even consider the rest of my resolutions, I wrote "cook more". Included in that resolution is eating more fresh food...as in stuff that will actually go bad over time if you don't eat it. I admit, putting a clock on the food that you eat is a scary, scary notion to me. We all remember Jerry Seinfeld's routine on expired milk and how it's the psychology of drinking milk on the day it expires that makes it intolerable, not the taste or the texture. Well. Listen. To. This.

The lovely Ma W bought me some groceries over Christmas. I estimate the date of purchase to have been roughly 11 days ago. One of the items I bought was a big bag of fresh oranges. This week I started getting nervous about them, but assured myself that if they were bad, they would look bad, perhaps like this. Alas, they looked perfectly ok. Today I took one to work, sliced it up, and it looked juicy and succulent as ever. I ate lunch at my desk, pouring over the latest headlines and catching up on emails, and I wanted to save the orange slices for the last part of my meal (in order to leave a tangy, citrusy taste in my mouth for what surely would be hours to come).

Once I finished my sandwich I delicately slid an orange slice into my mouth, and my mouth.......instantly.......burned!! So many thoughts shot through my head simultaneously. "There is something rotten in my mouth." "My mouth is on fire." "My mouth tastes like the smell of spoil." "There is evil in my mouth." "Get it out now." "Bad. Bad. BAD!" I spit out the thrice chewed orange remnants onto my plate, and realized that the back of my tongue was stinging, as if hot, liquid garbage had just been poured into my mouth.

After spitting multiple times, rubbing my tongue with a Kleenex, and chasing the spoiled orange with two white fudge oreos and 800 ml of water, I feel a little better. But I still have that dull, stinging sensation in the back of my tongue. Which I really do not appreciate. Thanks a lot, "New Years"!

Prenatal hilarity.

A poem about the best thing that happened to me on New Years Day.

I never realized so happy and free
Prenatal yoga would make me be
Above all else, the very best part:
When my brother-in-law put one hand on his heart
With the other on his “growing tum”
I realized that not ever, no one
Could make me laugh nearly as loud
As him attempting kegels to make my sis proud

Odd person #7: Snooty Schields employee.

The setting: Schields sporting goods. The objective: Purchasing my pregnant sister a swimming suit. The context: A conversation.

Anna: Excuse me.

Schields employee: Yes how may I help you?

Anna: Do you have pregnant lady swim suits?

Schields employee: If you're talking about maternity swim wear, the answer is no, we do not carry it.

Anna: I was, in fact. Thank you.

At least I know I'm alive.

Coming back from breakfast with a friend this morning, I walked up the stairs to my house and entered the first door. As I was fishing my keys out of my purse which would ultimately allow me to enter the second door, and thus the building, I was terrified when I heard a slight shuffling of feet coming from someone standing directly next to me in the doorway.

Anna: *gasps!

Gangly fellow: Hahaha, I wasn't sure if I should open the door for you or not. So then I just stood here, not sure if you would notice me, but I guess you heard me breathing. Hahaha.

Anna: Um. Yeah. Who are you?

Gangly fellow: I'm Stephanie's friend Jacob. She lives on the second floor.

Anna: What are you doing standing in the entryway?

Jacob: Waiting for my car to heat up. What apartment are you in?

Anna: Um, that one (*points). Ok, well good luck with your car. *enters second door

Jacob: I actually think I'll wait in here. *shoves into the second door behind me

Anna: Oh. Um. Bye. *incoherent stammering, fumbling with apartment door lock

Jacob: Well, hey, at least you know you're alive, right? Hahahaha!

Anna: *hurries into apartment, closes and locks door, stays on other side of door listening for him to leave.

Jacob: *exits house 15 seconds later