So, it looks like this year is done. 2016 has somehow gotten a reputation for being absolutely terrible. But at what point did we all just sort of simultaneously decide that it was the worst year ever? I certainly don’t remember making that decision. I thought it was an excellent year, actually. I recognize the reasons we thought it was terrible: continuing chaos in the Middle East, a continuing refugee crisis, continuing terrorist attacks, continuing world hunger and poverty, continuing threats to our environment (both natural and man-made). There was an over abundance of deaths of famous and important people (or so I have been told), and a pretty ridiculous American Presidential Election came to an unsatisfying end. I recognize that terrible things happened. I recognize that in certain categories, 2016 was terrible.
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Sometimes when I think about things that happened to me when I was quite young, I don't think of myself as being so. I know that, objectively, I was considerably younger and less educated than I am now, but I still consider myself to be just as capable, and roughly just as large. And then I piece together the two unavoidable facts of my age at those times and my brother's age on Friday, and I am shaken to my core. There are things that I did and things that happened to me -- things that so many of us did or that happened to us -- at those ages that may actually kill me if my brother had to go through them. How are children, so fragile and innocent and naive and pure and formative, also so resilient? How is it possible that perfectly capable, confident, and strong people such as myself could come from things so terrible? On Friday I went to a conference at Utah Valley University co-hosted by BYU's Wheatley Institution and UVU's Center for the Study of Ethics. I found out about it about a week and half ago and, as I told my mother, "I saw “PEACEBUILDING” with a picture of a butterfly and knew I would freaking walk there if I had to." I didn't have to. I asked the magical world of Facebook for a ride and successfully obtained a good one. Maybe "obtained" isn't the word. Anyway. The remainder of this post will be adapted from my letter home this week. (So, Mom, Dad, Marian... don't read this yet. Your version is better anyway.) So, the conference! It was so good. We were there for a total of five speakers, and a discussion/Q&A session for two of them. Each speaker was better than the last. I took notes (in pink ink, of course). I managed to streamline (most) everything into a few key points:
I go to college at a university owned by my church. Naturally, the university is pretty conservative. It may come as a surprise to anyone who was in my AP Comparative Government class that my top choice school is a conservative one, but it's the truth. Of course, the political leanings of the students was not the primary factor in my decision, but that's beside the point. The point is that my Hillary Clinton poster and the Hillary logo in the window of my friends' dorm are generally looked down upon, and most of my peers would sooner vote for Trump than for Hillary. Of course, when they find out which candidate I selected on my absentee ballot, they always question it. I rarely answer, mostly because I'm not prepared to get into a fight. The truth is that I'm not particularly vocally articulate, and so I prefer to put my thoughts into writing. So, to anyone who has ever asked (or wanted to ask): This is for you.
I'm pretty sure you've all figured out by now that I'm a college student. If you haven't figured that out (and even if you have), here's the rundown: I'm in my first semester at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, currently studying Civil Engineering. Now, BYU is a Mormon school. And because of that, students here take almost enough religion credits to get a minor in it at pretty much any other school. One of the classes I'm in this semester is called Teachings and Doctrine of the Book of Mormon. For this class, I have to pick a Book of Mormon scripture each week for three weeks, and work on the principle taught in it. Another thing you've probably figured out by now is that I have trouble thinking a thing through if I don't write it down. And so, to help me figure out what I'm supposed to work on and how I'm supposed to do it, I'm going to write it down. And you're getting the opportunity to be along for the ride. So that's the set up.
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I'm Audrey, a college student and existential rambler.
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February 2021
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