I’m not the person you left behind anymore. There’s no one here to miss.

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

E.E. Cummings

You empowered me, not because you believed in me, but because you thought I couldn’t do any better. [I made a promise] I guess success is the best form of revenge. So get ready, I’m not going to let you hold me down. [Never to settle]

Sometimes support is the best way to succeed, knowing full well that you have your family and friends backing your every move. [Never can, never will] But sometimes, its in the second-guessing and uncertainty of others that makes your dreams more desirable. [Can’t hold us down.] So here’s to all those who think I can’t or I won’t, because I will, just wait and see. It’s all part of the ride.

100 days left till my college graduation. Can you believe it? 100 days left and I’m just now reevaluating my life goals. For pretty much my entire college career I’ve wanted to do something that involved journalism, broadcast - some form of media, but recently I’ve had this pull to do something different. Law school. From one side I have people saying, amazing, do it, you’ll be great, and then from the other, i have people questioning my abilities, doubting me, “I’m not good enough talk” and regardless of what people think, doesn’t it matter what my own heart says? The only thing that scares me, is that I’m 21 years old, shouldn’t I have this all figured out by now? But on the other hand I’m only 21 years old, and back to my previous blog, who says I have to have my life figured out now?

So here I am, reevaluating everything I’ve ever studied to possibly start new? I just with I knew how strong this part of me was. What if I make the wrong decision? What if i mess up? What if I fail. In the grand scheme of things, I have my entire life ahead of me, and if I fail I have time to pick up the pieces. I‘m just hoping that I’m strong enough to pick up those pieces. I’m just hoping I pick the right move and that I impress myself and make everyone else, proud. So, here's to jumping on the Kristen bandwagon. Let’s see what happens.

Here starts the countdown & here starts the most 100 important days of my life.

Everyone has their drug. For some people it’s literally a drug, for others its a relationship, or the aspiration for straight A’s or maybe even alcohol. Regardless, everyone has something that holds them back. For some people it’s completely recognizable, but for others its become so much apart of their lives that the thought of letting go is scarier than being addicted. I think it’s hard to figure out your ‘drug’ because sometimes that thing that holds you back feels like that only thing that’s keeping you going. And once people accept their drug, then the hard part comes. Figuring out the way to get over it.

What’s your anti-drug? While those commercials are super tacky in their over-abundant ways to promote a “drug-free America” what lies at the root of the question is true. For me, my ‘anti-drug’ is this blog. Granted my ‘drug’ isn’t an actual drug, but I think it’s worrying, and stress and the emotions of it all, and for me this blog has allowed me to vent my frustrations and let go of that. For others their anti-drug could be a roommate who cares enough to sit and listen. What is it? Have you found it? Are we even really looking?

too many thoughts - too many blogs.

Malibu went from being 85 degrees one day to the next completely rainy and cold. I’m literally sitting at the table watching the rain outside my window and it is so refreshing. It’s like God’s telling us that all things can be washed clean. Just like the rain pours down on the city and cleans the streets, so can we. We can chose daily to wash our lives free of all the mess and drama of our lives, or we can live in the muck and clutter that so often engulfs us. I think a lot of times, it’s easier to just wade through the mud because it’s easier than figuring a way to clean it up. But it’s up to us. Are we going to chose to renew ourselves or continue to struggle through, because at the end of the day, all it is is mud.

You know those days when you just have empty thoughts? You’re driving and nothings really running through your mind. You’re not making a mental checklist, you’re not consulting your planner, and its almost as if your mind took a day off and you’re at complete peace? That’s where I’m at today. Complete peace, a place where nothing can stir me.

I’m finally accepting that in 101 days I’m going to be walking across a stage, accepting a piece of paper that will define by last four years. I’m accepting the fact that Malibu isn’t going to be my home much longer and that, at this point in time, I don’t know where that place will be. I’m accepting that the relationships I’ve built over the past four years are going to change soon, but they will not be lost. I’ve accepted the fact that I cannot know what the future holds nor can I fully understand what my future will be, but I also understand that I’ve been given a choice.

I can either leap into my unknown future with reckless abandon and be excited for what the world is holding for me or I can live my life, never really experiencing it for fear of change. I’ve accepted that life’s going to come whether I want it to or not and I’ve chosen to open my eyes and jump, with reckless abandon, into the world. I’m at peace, and I’m jumping in.

“Why are we inspired by another person’s courage? Maybe because it gives us the sweet and genuine surprise of discovering some trace, at least, of the same courage in ourselves."

-Laurence Shames

“My fellow citizens, our nation is posed for greatness. We must do what we know is right and do it with all our might. Let history say of us, “There were golden years- when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, when America reached for her best."

President Ronald Reagan

Inaguaral Address, January 21, 1985

Everyone, throughout their life gets to watch American go through things that will go down in history as one of the most influential/ challenging/ scary ect moments in history. And, I have grown up in such an amazing time, historically. I watched as America and the world joined together after 9/11 and picked each other back up. I watched as strangers helped strangers when the levees broke in Katrina. Now, I have watched as Barack Obama took his oath into the Presidency. Regardless of my political preference, it’s hard not to be moved by the ceremony. It’s a ‘hinge point in history,’ and I’m grateful to be here to experience it.

“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”

-President Barack Obama.

I think alot of times, we have holidays and don’t really understand the purpose of them, other than getting a day off of school. But today, on the recognitiion of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, we should all take time to read his imfamous, “I have a dream” speech, in remember of his desire for freedom.

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

-Martin Luther King, Jr.- August 28, 1963

Recently, I’ve been having these reoccurring dreams. I mean they’re nothing special like the dreams Joseph interpreted for the king, but I feel like they mean something, maybe. The strange thing is, is that they’re the same, the same people, the same situations, over and over again. It’s been over a week now, and every night as I lay my head down to sleep, I fear that the dream I hate having, will occur, and once again, I won’t want to wake, because my dreams are better than reality. I don’t really understand dreams, I’d like to think that they have some alternative meaning that one day will reveal itself, but until then, I guess it’s just me and my dreams.

I don’t wanna dream about
All the things that never were
Maybe I can live without
When I’m out from under
I don’t wanna feel the pain
What good would it do me now
I’ll get it all figured out
When I’m out from under

I started this blog with a mantra that I wanted to (hopefully) carry out throughout this entire thing, and it was:

“To be nobody but your self in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”

I never really explained what that means, and well I guess it’s pretty self-explainable, so hopefully everyone can see that ideal running through my blog with the strongest force.

Being in college has definitely made me rethink everything that defines who I am. And, while Pepperdine does a great job of allowing me to be secure in myself, it’s also has challenged me in areas I never thought possible. I never would have imagined that at a Christian school, my faith would be challenged or that my values would be questioned. It comes to a point, I think, in everyone’s life where you have to decide who you are, and never stop fighting for that. And, I think it’s something that if we’re not careful of, will get lost.

“The world busts at the seams with people ready to tell you you’re not good enough. On occasion, some may be correct. But do not do their work for them. Seek any jobs; ask anyone out; pursue any goal. Don’t take it personally when they say 'no'- they may not be smart enough to say 'yes'."

Keith Olbermann

“Cause these are the days worth living
These are the years we’re given
And these are the moments
These are the times
Let’s make the best out of our lives…"

“Was it really worth it?

Was she everything that you were looking for?
Feel like a man?
I hope you know that, you can’t go back

You’re gonna see me, in your dreams tonight
My face is gonna haunt you all the time
I promise that you gon’ want me back
When your world falls apart, like shattered glass"

The amazing Britney Spears.

It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those awe-inspiring -she did it again posts and I’m not saying this is that post, but it’s definitely something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

So, I know this girl who thinks she is so entitled. And, she’s not she just acts like it. It frustrates me because she think that she is so superior and above the rest because she’s pretty and drives nice cars. It’s just irritating to see someone so wonderful turn into a snot all because she thinks she deserves to be.

"i wish i was home"

Welcome to 2009 - The start of a beautiful year :)

This was the New Year’s Eve Ball in 1978.

So, it’s the night before my last semester of college and when I say I’m kind of nervous, that might be a bit of an understatement, I’m alot nervous. I don’t think I’m nervous about the actual school part, but I’m more nervous for the what’s going to happen after school part. It’s scary, it’s different, it’s changing but there’s always a bit of reassurance.

When Callie and I were driving back to Malibu, we were both super anxious for what the new year would hold. We talked about the different possibilities, the afters, the what-if’s and all the scare in-betweens. But it wasn’t until I pulled onto PCH, that I found that little bit of reassurance I was looking for. Not only was it was the most beautiful view ever but it was different than your typical Malibu sunset. The sun was hidden behind grey clouds, but it was still shining through and casting the most beautiful glow on the ocean. Even though it was hidden behind clouds trying to find it’s way through, it did because that’s just what it does, it finds its way to shine.

I kind of think that’s how I’m going to be, hidden at times and not likely to shine through, but at the end of the day, I will and it’ll be the most beautiful view ever.