Alive Magazine

stories from santiago & nicaragua cooking for the soul

(mis)adventures

in the kitchen

sharra frank and the business of art looks like sunshine: remembering katherine ann olson

distress your own jeans

able of content

7 Story of My Life: A Word from the Editors

THINK

by Lauren Melcher & Saralyn Smith | photos by Danica Myers

a word from our editors

MUSE

Stories are, I have learned, the way I develop my relationships. By stories I don’t mean fiction, or fairy tales, or lies - I mean the nitty-gritty stories that expose family dynamics, explanations for seemingly crazy situations, and hilarious recollections from everyday life...

10 My Night Poem For The Night (Unexpected)

by Amy Larsen | photo by Whitney Dotson

original poetry and fresh lyrics

My eyes hit the blue skies and SMACK the tear-red sunset cries or is it the moon, round white colder bone that sees the one, the ‘what’ I’m thinking of...

DISCOVER 11 Cooking for the Soul

by Hilary Novacek | photos by Melissa Kruse

what makes you come alive?

TASTE favorite dorm recipes & easy snack ideas

FLAIR

In a world where women are supposed to be abstaining from the stayat-home-mother role and going out into the workforce there did not seem to be a place for homemade cookies that didn’t come from the cooler-aisle in the grocery store...

13 Apple Jack Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookies & Popovers

by Hilary Novacek

Favorite original recipes by Hilary Novacek, as mentioned in her article, Cooking for the Soul.

14 Distress Your Own Jeans

by Leah Metz | photos by Danica Myers

creative styles & ways to add personal flair to current trends

EXPLORE

I t is part of my innate nature to seek out bargains and sales at all means possible. One thing that helps me stay up to date in the fashion world without spending gobs of money is to customize my clothing...

17 An Unlikely Hero

by Elizabeth Sanders

tales of travel and adventure

GIVE

The famous person who wrote me a postcard twenty-one years ago is legendary for an achievement I do not envy, an experience I do not wish to have, an enthusiasm I do not understand...

20 The Bracelet

by Whitney Dotson

stories of service & volunteering

AIM

hese kids were just like us. The girl who gave me the gifts was just T like me. They dressed just like we did, laughed louder, and danced far more gracefully; yet their lives stood in stark contrast with ours...

22 Pieced Together: The Business of Art

curious ambitions, odd successes, and unusual achievements

by Danica Myers, Riley Seitz, & Sharra Frank

Although Frank‘s life as an artist began as soon as she could pick up a crayon, her journey into focusing on art as a business began in her college years.

Jessie Klein, contributing artist, is an English major at Colorado Christian University.

She enjoys poetry, photography, and music. She aspires to be a writer, writing what ever God lays upon her heart at the time. She loves quaint coffee shops, curling up with steaming mug of Chai tea, and having long conversations with good friends.

Melissa Kruse, contributing artist, holds a BA in psychology and art, and has an undying passion for God, photography, and international travel. Currently living in Australia, she hopes to soon move to New York where she can further immerse herself in the world of fashion and photography and discover where else God might lead her.

Amalie Kwassman, contributing writer, is a 16-year-old eleventh grader from Brooklyn, New York. Her poem “Unsung Melody of the F-train” was published in the Spring 2007 issue of “Celebrate! Youth Poets Speak Out!” She has also performed original works and given dramatic recitations for the Holocaust Memorial Committee.

Amy Larsen, contributing writer, is a senior at St Olaf College and hails from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She likes sleeping outside, watching people, walking quickly, and listening to stories. The early, fresh morning hours are her favorite time of day to wonder: what is the spider on the shower wall perceiving?

Hilary Novacek, contributing writer, is a senior at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn. She is a double major in English writing and Social Work. Hilary is also the editor in chief of the College of St. Catherine newspaper, The Wheel, and is currently interning as a supportive housing service coordinator for the Wilder Foundation.

Megan Prosen, contributing writer, is a graduating senior in Spanish, Education, and Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn.

She has studied abroad three times as an undergraduate and on the weekends she can be found hanging out at concerts & events for her beloved job at Radio Disney.

Amber Regan, contributing artist, leads finger aerobics class for people four times her age and loves inventing recipes for foods that ought to exist (her latest: caramel apple chocolate pudding brownies). In her spare time, you’ll find her holding books hostage from the library, raiding thrift shops, or going for a skip with friends.

Eliza Sanders, contributing writer, is a senior English major at St. Olaf College. She hopes to attend graduate school and to one day teach others about the wonders of literature and the joy of writing about it. In addition to studying, she also sings in the St. Olaf Chapel Choir and is a mentor in the Nightingale Program.

Riley Seitz, contributing writer, is a teenager, student, athlete and a young artist. She is sophomore at the Senior High in Northfield, Minn. She loves to make art and always staying busy. When she is out of her school life she loves to be with friends and family, making any kind of art, playing hockey, volleyball, and softball.

Maria Wentworth, contributing artist, grew up in Menomonie, Wisc. And is currently a senior at St. Olaf College. She will graduate in May 2008 with a BA in Sociology/ Anthropology and Studio Art. After graduation, she plans to explore the effects visual arts can have on society and social change, and ways to utilize this visual world.

contributors

Whitney Dotson, contributing writer, loves to laugh, enjoys fascinating conversations with complete strangers, looks forward to rainy days (so she can play in it), is easily amused, and is a self-diagnosed chocoholic. She thoroughly enjoys drinking coffee with her grandparents and likes climbing trees and mountains.

Bethany Doty, contributing writer, is a senior at UC Davis and enjoys fall colors and opening the windows during thunderstorms. When not in class, she can be found drinking coffee with her hilarious roommates, planning fun events for her Christian sorority, or buying fish for her facebook aquarium.

Martha Franke, contributing writer, is a holistic therapist and family life coach in the Twin Cities, Minn. She joins her clients on their journey to healing and wholeness, helping them discern the beauty of who they truly are, and finding how to live authentically. Contact her at: www.marthafranke.com or Martha@creativecoachingsite.com.

Jeffrey Hyman, contributing writer, is a Portland-based rock climber, amateur theologian, and imagination expert. He received a BA from St. Olaf College, in Mathematics, Religion and Ancient Studies. Currently he drinks too much coffee and is looking to buy a dog. You can check out his thoughts at http://notfaroff.blogspot.com.

staff&interns

Jen Dotson, creative director, loves to experiment with Thai cooking, barter voice lessons for homemade dinners and trampoline-bouncing lessons, and photograph weddings – especially when she can capture details of the day like cake icing swirls and beautiful beadwork. She escapes the office by cartwheeling down the hallway, and scares her roommates by rearranging the furniture in their house at least weekly.

Lauren Melcher, managing editor, can’t leave a bookstore empty-handed and is happiest when she is buying tickets to new places. She loves cooking with her housemates, reconnecting with old friends, and skiing with her family back in California. When not reading Dickens novels or writing for the Manitou Messenger as a senior at St. Olaf College, she dreams of criss-crossing the world as a foreign correspondent or travel guide writer.

Danica Myers, artistic director, loves traveling and becoming a cultural collage of a person. She couldn’t live without nature, music that has soul, and being surrounded by literature and people who are genuine. Her favorite books are children’s stories that are deeply philosophic and poetic. She has a great propensity for inventing words and making simple things in life into strange and elaborate metaphors.

Saralyn Smith, editorial intern, is a senior majoring in sociology at the College of St. Catherine. Originally from Southern California, she moved to Minnesota looking for independence - and found herself. She also yearns to return to Denmark, the country in which she spent four of the most fascinating months of her life. At the moment, she is busy preparing for her college graduation in December and wishing she had more time to knit and practice guitar.

Leah Metz, advertising intern, thoroughly enjoys learning and performing dances from all over the world, such as salsa, hula, and her favorite, belly dancing. She is an avid journal writer (and thus, has a chronicle of her life since age seven) and also loves a good cup of hot tea. Every day Leah tries to follow her motto, “live life without regrets” to the best of her ability.

Anna Gizzi, creative assistant, is a recent graduate of Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minn., and a year-long volunteer for the Sisters of St. Joseph Worker Program. The program pays for her basic needs so she can work for wonderful non-profits like Alive Magazine. Anna has been a lover of art, literature and media since she wrote her first comic in the fifth grade, and feels privileged to be able to use her love for art and stories at her new job with Alive.

Heather Scheiwe, founding editor and board chair, likes climbing fourteen thousand-foot mountains in her home state of Colorado, concocting fabulous vegetarian dishes, drinking pots of coffee with interesting folks, and exploring back roads that lead to anywhere and nowhere. She is loving life’s new adventures as she navigates law school at Northwestern University in Chicago.

“HOW WONDERFUL IT IS THAT NOBODY NEED WAIT A SINGLE MOMENT BEFORE STARTING TO IMPROVE THE WORLD.” -ANNE FRANK

tales of fiction & truth, silly shenanigans, and friendly foolery

MISTER life from his perspective

by Bethany Doty | comic by Anna Gizzi

I channeled my inner spy and whispered, “It’s my Professor; I think I’m going to follow her.” I would need to position myself so I could pass my professor on the other side of the street, double back, and casually strike up a conversation. Objective: brownie points.

27 How to Mess Up a Prom Date

by Jeffrey Hyman

It was a brilliant, bomb-proof plan involving chicken Alfredo and my guitar. I would serenade her on the balcony while she dined, and once captivated with me, she would have no choice but to accept my offer to accompany me to prom.

EXPLORE 28 Mi Transformacion: tales of travel and adventure

I left my heart in Santiago

by Megan Prosen

I wanted the Dominican Republic to become a part of me. I not only wanted to leave my own mark, I wanted to be branded. I may have only had three consecutive months to commit physically to that country, but emotionally I was in it for the long haul. I already planned on keeping it with me for the rest of my life.

MEND

picking up the pieces when life falls apart

30 Looks Like Sunshine:

A tribute to the life of Katherine Ann Olson Mari Johnson, Sandra Kazi, Sarah Sevcik, & Brad Abbott

Katherine Ann Olson was a victim of homicide on October 25, 2007, after responding to an online posting for a babysitting job. After her passing, even people who had not known her personally were deeply impacted by her infectious spirit and legacy. We share their works with you in loving memory of Katherine.

CONSIDER 32 Found It Beautiful news-related stories relevant to you and your world

MEND

picking up the pieces when life falls apart

LISTEN

life wisdom from someone older and wiser

by Amalie Kwassman | photo by Melissa Kruse

“Found it Beautiful” grew in response to the U.S. Senate’s acceptance of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. Once you discover the beauty in others, the beauty is found in you.

34 I see only my next step on the path, but this I offer to you all: On Healing

by Amy Larsen | photos by Jessie Klein

Personally, I spend a fair amount of time despairing over not only what is most deeply disturbing or fearsome in the world, but also what merely “itches” me. Often, if it is “not a big deal,” I forget to seek change.

37 Speak your Truth

by Martha Franke | watercolor by Maria Wentworth

eing the people pleaser that I had been for 43 years, that idea was a B hard one to swallow. I was also the peace keeper in my family, avoiding conflict at almost all costs as I grew up. However, contorting my one’s words and actions to please others and to avoid conflict doesn’t go well with being authentic and genuine, even if it is well intentioned.

cover artwork by anna gizzi back cover artwork by amber regan

table of contents

MISCHIEF 26 Experiments of an English Major

ission&visio

OUR MISSION Alive is a non-profit publication with a passion to help young people discover and share their unique gifts. We do so by asking, “What makes you come alive?” and encouraging them to share their stories--the God-given experiences that make them unique. Recognizing that change must begin with youth, our aim is to give young people a voice, and in the process, allow the conversations that result to shape the communities in which they take part.

Alive seeks to transform the very tool which binds us--the media--into a tool which frees us. In a culture ridden with derogatory messages aimed at young people, we find solutions more valuable than complaints, and respond by creating the media we wish to see.

Using the vehicle of a magazine, we invite thoughtful young women to share their experience of life through a story, a poem, a piece of artwork, or a photograph. All aspects of Alive Magazine, from editing to marketing to graphic design, are directed and produced by young women 25 and under.

OUR VISION • Alive believes that advertising & media can be used as a positive tool for social change.

• Alive sees creativity as a means for sharing & developing one’s identity.

• Alive fosters vocation exploration for young women.

• Alive believes in the economic value of young women’s work.

• Alive promotes a lifestyle of authenticity, as modeled by Jesus Christ.

• Alive values beauty as a virtue of character, not an assessment of worth.

• Alive supports businesses that operate with a local awareness and global consciousness, with respect for economic sustainability and human life.

CONTACT US: Alive Arts Media 1313 5th St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55414 (952) 913-6091 info@alivemagazine.org www.alivemagazine.org

“DON’T ASK WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS, ASK WHAT MAKES YOU COME ALIVE AND GO DO THAT... WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS IS PEOPLE WHO HAVE COME ALIVE.” -HOWARD THURMAN

“Lauren, I just called to tell you a funny story,” said my friend Katie the other day when I answered the phone. My eyes lit up, even though she couldn’t see me. I knew something fabulous was about to happen.

“I was talking to my friend in Germany, who was an exchange student at my high school during senior year,” Katie told me. “She wants to come visit me next March when she comes to visit her sister who is an exchange student here now. It took us a few emails, but eventually we figured out that she’s -” “Lisa’s sister!” I shouted, hardly able to believe what Katie was telling me. Sure enough, she was talking about Sabine, the older sister of my family’s 17-yearold exchange student, Lisa. “I knew you had an exchange student at home in California, and so we figured it out,” Katie told me.

It wasn’t a long story, and at face value it was more of a news blurb than anything. But to me, it was one of the best stories I had ever heard.

Stories are, I have learned, the way I develop my relationships. By stories I don’t mean fiction, or fairy tales, or lies - I mean the nitty-gritty stories that expose family dynamics, explanations for seemingly crazy situations, and hilarious recollections from everyday life.

My friends know that I love stories. Telling stories about crazy adventures, listening to stories about people I don’t even know... any kind of story, in fact, will do. And as much as I like fiction, I like the true stories the best. There is nothing I love more than sitting around and telling stories, absorbing the personal characteristics of the storyteller at the same time.

Because, naturally, we all tell stories differently. I have one friend who rarely changes his inflection or tone when telling stories, but I know exactly how much importance he places on the subject by how long he talks about it. Another friend embellishes her stories with hilarious “side stories” that take up almost as much time as the main story. One frequently makes up her own words, leaving the listener to laugh in confusion until she pauses to breathe, at which point they barrage her with questions like “what in the world is lessthanthree supposed to mean?!”

It isn’t just the stories that I love, it’s the way people tell them. The way their faces light up when they talk about a happy memory, or the mischievous smile that lurks even though they are trying to be serious. How, when I hear a particularly moving story, I feel forever closer to that person.

Ultimately, the stories are important because they are an easy way for me to remember the connections I have with other people. Stories certainly serve to entertain and inform, but I think the best kinds are often the ones that I can’t forget, no matter how hard I try.

stories are the way i develop my relationships.

We all tell stories. It’s one of those rare human experiences that transcends space, time, culture, and language. Teenagers on the street recount adventures in mischiefmaking. Grandparents and parents inform their progeny of how much more difficult life was when they were young. My roommates and I are constantly up until ridiculous hours of the morning regaling each other with tales from our childhood and absurd happenings around campus. Every year, Halloween prompts people across the English-speaking world to gather and tell ghost stories. Millions of people the world over attend movies, read books, listen to music and watch television every day.

But why this fascination with stories and storytelling? My studies in sociology have led me to see that nothing exists “just because”. Everything that our cultures create has a purpose, a reason for being. Storytelling is no different. There are many reasons storytelling is such an integral part of the human experience, and they go beyond our common conception of stories as merely an outlet for self-expression.

One of the most obvious is that stories help to connect us to our past. We tell stories about days gone by, hoping to make them come alive and retain their relevance. “History” is essentially officially sanctioned storytelling, allowing the past to remain fresh in our minds.

Storytelling helps us reaffirm our beliefs. Cultures tend to tell stories that confirm behaviors and beliefs they value.

The United States has a plethora of stories about people who have “pulled themselves up by they bootstraps” or transcended their humble roots and found success, betraying the value we place on individualism and upward social mobility. Even looking at which stories get told and who gets to tell them provides us information about power relations in the culture in which they exist.

However, we can challenge others with our stories. Movements for civil rights, woman’s suffrage, labor laws and unions, and gay rights have all had a firm grounding in stories of pain, suffering and oppression. These tales are told to Congress to enact legislation and to the public to raise awareness. Through the sharing of their stories and those of others who have suffered, members of the movements bond together as brothers and sisters in the fight.

stories are not just things that we tell or absorb. stories are lived.

But what does this mean for us, as young women finding our footing and way in the world? Why should we care about stories and the roles they play in our lives? The obvious answer is that it allows us to better understand our culture and ourselves. However, it can do so much more. If we understand the power of stories and storytelling, we can more effectively harness it. We can see where and how we might best tell our stories and those of others. The next time you are trying to raise awareness about an issue close to your heart, consider the stories connected to it. Chances are, the telling of those tales will make all the difference.

I think there is another deeper and more important reason for understanding the importance of storytelling, though. Stories are not just things that we tell or absorb.

Stories are lived. Every choice you make and action you take tells a story about who you are. These stories are just as important and potentially influential as any you might read in a magazine or see in the movie theater. What stories will you choose to tell, both with your words and with your actions? What stories will others tell about you?

photograph by whitney dotson

today utterly even somewhere daring anywhere yes

//

other? nowhere

poetry by amy larsen

My eyes hit the blue skies and SMACK the tear-red sunset cries or is it the moon, round white colder bone that sees the one, the ‘what’ I’m thinking of that, cloud-covered soon, sounds light boldly home the sight is indescribable, the air un-imbibeable I see trees, dead, filled with birds live and able I see cars and taillights, passing drivers and stars but I can’t speak, I’m a glider I’m stuck in my car my spirit is a diver a riser a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! recogniser my thoughts are weak, my mind is muck, can’t go far what am I saying? what am I praying? what self or imposter am I laying all out or playing? what words to obey, what phrases to slay what is communicated well enough anyway? hopeful thrills with the sighs and chills my ‘why’s’ true replies I hope fullness spills out over me blasts me THWACK to sinking fire and rising stone and dumps me down amidst the intensifying and free and dyes me raging sunset in the color-stealing dusk and washes me, bracing moonrise over the leaning cusp of wake-up eyes, alive to what or who is in this thinking passing open entering moments

written by hilary novacek photographs by melissa kruse

A

s a little girl I loved to bake. At least once a week I would sit on the countertop of the kitchen with my mom as she would teach me the essential art of baking. My hair in pig-tails and an old apron of my greatgrandmother’s around my waist, I would wash my hands and excitedly gather all the important ingredients: sugar, flour, brown sugar, vanilla, eggs, baking soda. My mom would teach me how to use the back of a butter knife to pack and level off a perfect cup of flour, the best way to mix the ingredients together and how to crack and egg into a cup with one swift move to avoid egg shells getting mixed with the cookie dough.

After learning everything my mother knew about cooking, I took my skills to the sandbox. Measuring out bits of sand and shoveling it from one end of the sandbox to the other I created the world’s most exquisite sand cakes and cookies, garnished with dandelions and leaves. My mother’s cookies always tasted better.

The older I got the more my mom tried to teach me about

cooking and baking. Life got busy and I got older and soon the days of sitting on the counter were few and far between. The end of high school came, as did moving out of my mother’s house. When I started college, cooking meant a brisk walk to the cafeteria and fending for myself in the form of quick-fix meals and bad-for-you snack foods. My culinary skills as a freshman required me to have proficiency for using the microwave and ability to not burn popcorn to the point where it would set off the fire alarm in my residence hall. A lack of an oven in close proximity meant that even the rare macaroni and cheese dish was a culinary delight. There was nothing that I appreciated more than the holidays when I would be at home for an extended period of time with all the home-baked morsels of my childhood.

Later in college, I moved into an on-campus apartment with three roommates. My cooking skills from long ago were finally going to be utilized. Nothing excited me more than going shopping for my own kitchen utensils.

I imagined cooking family-style meals for my roommates

and sitting around the round kitchen table and enjoying them together. The stove called to me, asking me to cook upon her. The oven seemed to smile at me, begging for sweet cookies. The first thing I decided to do was get my mother’s famous Crunchy-Chip cookie recipe.

Unfortunately, the outcome of my own Crunchy-Chip cookies was a version whose texture was grainy and a little too chewy and a little too crunchy at the same time.

No one appreciated my failed attempt aside from my mother who I had invited especially over to try my cookies.

In general, a lack of enthusiasm towards my desire to be a chef for my roommates was a disappointing reality. I was teased for being “domestic” and attempting to be a mini-Martha Stewart.

In a world where women are supposed to be abstaining from the stayat-home-mother role and going out into the workforce there did not seem to be a place for homemade cookies that didn’t come from the cooler-aisle in the grocery store.

For Christmas my boyfriend bought me a recipe book called “How to Cook Everything,” and during the holidays my mom started whipping out all her old recipes to compile into a new cook book as she tested out her famous Christmas cookies. The lack of appreciation I received regarding my desire to cook had me torn between trying out these newly found recipes and giving up all together.

As my senior year of college approached, I moved off campus into a rented house. I was finally away from the chaos of roommates and the craziness of campus life and ready to cook up something new.

It was time to create a home for myself. Without the criticizing eye of friends who didn’t quite understand my desire to cook, I pulled out my cook book. I was afraid to try something too hard or too complicated. During my first attempts to cook when I had first started living in an apartment, all my recipes turned out lumpy or burnt or underdone or just plain not right. In my house, that was now a home, I was determined to do right.

I decided to surprise my boyfriend one day by making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I added all the ingredients with precision, double-checking their quantities to ensure the perfect recipe. Sure enough as they were taken out of the oven they looked just like I had remembered them to be. I tasted them as they cooled and my heart sank. They

were terrible. My boyfriend pretended he liked them, but a majority of the ruined cookies sat in the cookie jar for a month before becoming stale and meeting the fate of the garbage can.

i opened up my cookbook and started to cook my crabbiness away.

I took it easy on the cooking for a month or two. I needed a break. Yet, as I was waiting to reconcile with my baking desires, every magazine I read or show I watched seemed to remind me of new things I wanted to bake.

One morning, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. It was one of those weeks where I had three papers to write, a stupid book to read, and no motivation to do either. I flopped myself onto my couch and turned on the television. I found myself sitting and watching the Food Network. I watched for a while, and when my mood didn’t improve I turned it off and retreated to the kitchen. From there I opened up my cookbook and started to cook my crabbiness away.

I preheated the oven, I beat the eggs, I measured the flour and I greased the pan. In an ambitious attempt to cook away my anger, I decided to make popovers, one of my mother’s most difficult recipes. The recipe involved perfecting the timing and temperature of the oven in a way that the popovers truly popped. One false move and I would have limp, lifeless un-popped popovers. Focused on only succeeding, I watched through the oven door as they rose and turned golden brown.

When the timer went off, I slowly and carefully removed them from the oven. I scooped one out of the pan and put it on a plate, smothering it with butter. I took a bite and smiled. I hadn’t failed. I was a cook.

That was the day that I started cooking whenever I could.

Every time I am tired, angry, upset or moody, I open up my cookbook and go to town. Something had changed from my cooking attempts when I had first moved away from home. Maybe I was a little more grown up. Maybe it was finally my time to be a cook. Or maybe it was that I had to burn a few cookies before creating the perfect batch.

......

......

written by leah metz photographed by danica myers

............................................

y.......................

...........................

Materials

i love fashion.

However, this love is often hindered by the lack of funds and my own frugal behavior.

That being said, it is part of my innate nature to seek out bargains, and sales at all means possible. Whenever I enter a store I go straight to the back where I know I will find the clearance racks. I get a sense of accomplishment and pride every time I find a stellar deal, such as my designer jeans that were originally 180 dollars for only 45.00! Credit should be given to my mother who taught me the clearance ways. She introduced me to TJ Maxx, my shopping Mecca and showed me how to find just about anything, for cheaper. Another thing that helps me stay up to date in the fashion world without spending gobs of money is to customize my clothing.

One of my greatest accomplishments was when I distressed my own jeans. In this article I hope to give some advice on how to make your jeans unique and get the look that brand names price at $80.00, only for cheap! Distressed jeans are often more expensive then normal ones because of all the work that companies go through to make them the way they are. However, this process is not only fun but gives you the power to put your own creative thoughts into progress.

.................................................. z First off you’re going to need to hit up the clearance racks or stores with used clothing in search of a cheap pair of jeans. Once you have these, you can start the distressing process.

y............................................................... z

To get ideas of how you want your jeans to look go online and find pictures of a pair of distressed jeans that you like. That way you’ll know where to put the holes and rough the edges.

Lay jeans on a flat surface on pieces of newspaper to protect it from the ground that you are using.

Start using the materials that you have gathered to rough up the edges of the jeans such as on the hemlines, pockets, by the zipper, knees etc.

To create holes, all you have to do is keep at the roughing up in one specific area. It may take a long time so if you want to use the razor blade to cut through the jeans and then rough up the edges, this can be done.

After you have created all the damage to your jeans you have the option of adding bleach to customize and lighten certain areas. Pour1 part bleach 1 part water into a small container so that it doesn’t spill. You can add bleach to your jeans however you would like such as splattering it or putting it all in one area to create a hole. Remember the bleach spots won’t show up until after you have washed your jeans.

Place your new customized jeans in the washing machine with an old tennis shoe and fabric softener and run them on a cold cycle. Remember: don’t put anything else in the washing machine with your jeans the first time because the bleach could damage the other clothing.

After washing and drying your jeans you can go back and repeat steps if you aren’t satisfied. Otherwise put on your new jeans and get ready for multiple compliments and inquires as to where you bought those “great jeans!”

1 2 3 4

5 6 7

an ordinary person of “modest abilities”

written by elizabeth sanders

laying Trivial Pursuit can be a humbling experience, and for that reason I believe everyone should play every so often, if only to realize how much they still have to learn. And there’s always the chance of stumbling across a very valuable piece of information.

My friend Alice and I played the original Trivial Pursuit occasionally during high school, trying desperately to land on the “Art and Literature” spaces and laughing at our

ignorance in every other subject. After asking one of the many questions at which I shrugged my shoulders, Alice read the answer, “Sir Edmund Hillary.”

A sudden spark of recognition made me start. “Wait, who is that?”

I asked.

“Sir Edmund Hillary? Don’t you know who that is? He was the first guy to get to the top of Mount Everest.”

With slightly furrowed eyebrows and a look of disbelief, I said, “Let me check something. Hold on.”

I made my way to my mother’s room and picked up a framed postcard dated April 11, 1986,

two weeks after my birthday, that had rested on her dresser for as long as I can remember. The small wooden frame had always been a part of the scenery of the house, and although I’d looked at it every so often in childhood, I hadn’t thought about it for several years. Bringing the card back to the living room, I read the diagonal, scrawled writing aloud:

many saw their “To Elizabeth III, who may grow up to be bright triumph as the and beautiful and kind. Ed Hillary.” beginning of a new Nearly half a century before Alice and I sat down our game, Edmund Hillary and his climbing era of possibility. to partner Tenzing Norgay became the first men to reach the top of the highest mountain in the world, from whence they ascended to the heights of worldwide celebrity. Mount Everest is also called Chomolunga by the Sherpa people, Tibetan for “Goddess Mother of the World,” and Tenzing’s mother spoke of “The Mountain So High No Bird Can Fly Over It.” On May 29th, 1953, all 29,035 feet of her were conquered by a beekeeper from New Zealand and the son of Sherpa yak herders. Many saw their triumph as the beginning of a new era of possibility, especially given their impeccable timing – news of their success reached London on the morning of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who promptly knighted Hillary before he had even left Nepal. To this day, Sir Edmund Hillary remains the favorite son of New Zealand, as well as the only living New Zealander to be depicted on its currency.

Many years later, my grandparents joined eight to ten Americans on a trip through the mountains and villages of Nepal, an excursion that included the company of Sir Edmund Hillary. Now well into his sixties, the adventurer had to be cautious of his health at high altitudes, and my grandfather, the physician of the party, was responsible for taking Hillary’s blood pressure each morning. During the journey, Granddad told him about his first grandchild, born a couple of weeks earlier, and asked if, in light of the significance of Elizabeth II in his life, Hillary would mind writing a postcard to me, “Elizabeth III.” Sir Edmund, or Ed, obliged.

I’ve often puzzled over the irony of my postcard from the great mountaineer. In general, I don’t like the outdoors. I strongly believe in preserving the remaining wild places on our planet, and I enjoy the natural world, but mostly when it is controlled, lined with sidewalks and little benches. Slightly irrational fears of insects and of the lack of showers and toilets turn an ordinary camping trip into a personal test of courage and fortitude. The sorts of places that captivated Sir Edmund Hillary – the Himalayas, Antarctica, the mighty River Ganges – and the adventures he pursued there don’t appeal to me. While I admire those with such a passion for physical challenges, heroic pictures of men clinging to sheer rock faces only make me think, “Why?” Sir Edmund Hillary’s first ski trip to Mount Ruapehu, where he saw snow for the first time, was the start of his future mountaineering career. In his autobiography Nothing Venture, Nothing Win, Hillary writes, “I returned home in a glow of fiery enthusiasm for the sun and the cold and the snow – especially the snow!” My first ski trip, on the other hand, c o n vinced me that it would

be many years before I would embark on a second. My most vivid memories of those four days include countless bruises, suffocating fear, and utter humiliation before a group of unnaturally coordinated nine-year-olds.

aspire. The mighty mountaineer was once a very shy young man, a trait that stayed with him into adulthood and even after stepping onto the top of the world. In 1953, Ed had found the courage to scale Everest, but not to ask his future wife, Louise Rose, to marry him. Louise’s mother ended up asking her for him.

In addition to his introversion, Hillary’s general demeanor is not that of a proud conqueror of mountains, but rather that of a humble, compassionate man who is surprisingly down-to-earth. Making deep statements during his great adventure didn’t interest him, perhaps because he didn’t realize that each word would be remembered forever. No “giant leap for mankind” from Ed; instead, when he first saw his friend George Lowe after descending from the summit, he merely said, “Well, George, we’ve knocked the bastard off.” In regards to his instant hero status and the constant question, “who got there first?” he relentlessly insisted on crediting the entire team for their success and asserting that he and Tenzing had reached Everest’s summit at the same time. Speaking about his knighthood (bestowed and accepted without his knowledge) in a TIME magazine interview in 2003, Hillary remarked, “If I’d been given the choice, I wouldn’t have had it… I didn’t really think I was the right material for knighthood.”

My uneasiness with outdoor adventure is not a family trait. My grandfather, father, and brother share the same enthusiasm that led Ed around the world and into the heavens. A passion for high places especially motivates my brother, Adam – at the age of eighteen, he has climbed all over America, scaled the Grand Teton three times, and traveled to Nepal, the country of Hillary’s heart.

I’ve struggled to reIT IS IN HIS UNEXPECTED late to this aspect of my family, but NATURE THAT I FIND Hillary does acknowledge that a name beginning with with no success; wild SOMETHING TOWARD “Sir” has helped him raise money, which he has used to become a hero of a different sort. The Sherpa people of places are certainly WHICH TO ASPIRE. Nepal captivated Hillary during his many adventures in the beautiful, but I would Himalayas, and he has devoted much of his life to building hospitals, air much prefer to see a city skyline on strips, and over 30 schools in Sherpa communities. So great has been his the horizon rather than a stretch of influence that the Sherpas now call Ed “Burra Sahib,” or “big in heart,” looming peaks. It is slightly ironic, and, according to my grandfather, revere him as “something between then, that I am the one who has a human and a god.”

After adventuring, his mission to help the Sherpa this postcard, for whose life Sir Edpeople has been the leading passion in Hillary’s life. mund Hillary scribbled three simple wishes. Were the card written The famous person who wrote me a postcard twenty-one years ago is to my brother, he would have relegendary for an achievement I do not envy, an experience I do not wish alized its significance long before to have, an enthusiasm I do not understand. I think I do understand, his junior year of high school. though, the idea of an ordinary person of “modest abilities” (as Hillary Ed Hillary, however, has never quite embodied a typical hero and recipient of worldwide fame, and it is in his unexpected nature that I can find something to which to relate and

describes himself) reaching for something incredible. Although my interests differ greatly from his, my own goals can feel as though no bird could fly over them; I hope that, like Hillary, I can muster my modest abilities to touch the tops of my own mountains while doing so with humility and grace.

Hillary’s true success has been his ability to stand on the top of the world while keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground, and to bring a bit of the heaven he found back down to those who are still reaching. It is this achievement that inspires me when I look at the postcard written to Elizabeth III.

O

n our first morning in Managua, Nicaragua, we crammed 25 high school students into a tiny tour bus and ventured out into the capitol.

We saw dilapidated churches and homes and people sleeping in hammocks under tarps, protesting different governmental issues. It was hot and sticky outside and the air on the bus was thick as people became irritable. I was quiet as I tried to take it all in. This was my first time in a thirdworld country and my first experience in a country where hardly anyone spoke English. It was exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time.

Toward the end of the tour, our guide took us to La Basura – the city dump. We all wondered why we were driving a tour bus into the dump, but the moment we entered we understood. Our guide had shown us the city and told us of the political unrest within the country and how it affected the lives of every Nicaraguan. Now he was showing us the worst of the effects that it had caused. I’ll never forget what I saw when we turned the corner – poverty worse than I’d ever seen. There were people, families, everywhere. They were digging through the piles of trash as the trucks were dumping them. Small lean-to’s made of cardboard, sheet metal, and plastic containers speckled the valleys in the mountains of trash.

Our bus was absolutely silent as we all watched, horrified, as a small child walked past our bus with a dog, ribs protruding from each of their abdomens. Then a pregnant woman, whose belly seemed enormous because she was barely more than skin and bones, toted another child on her hip as she slowly probed through the pile in front of her. The more we saw the closer we all came to tears. My heart was in my throat as I realized that this was the basis of their whole existence – survival. In such a dangerous area to live, these people showed no fear on the surface. Some even looked up, smiled, and waved as we drove by. That was our introduc-

tion to the poverty of Nicaragua. It was a much needed wake-up call for all of us naïve norteamericanos!

Just two days later, we ventured to the Roberto Clemente School in the heart of the city to deliver school supplies we had collected for the children. The school itself looked a little run down and dirty, but the moment I stepped inside I saw how the vivacity of the children gave life to the structure. We spent about ten hours with these kids over two days and during that time we built some awesome relationships. They were so full of life! They wore genuine smiles and their laughs were contagious. Even though I’d only known these kids for a few hours, it seemed like we had all grown up together. We danced and sang and played games as a group

of old friends would. A girl of about 15 or 16 came up to me toward the end of the second day and took my hand and put a key chain in it. Then she tied a handmade bracelet on my wrist. I felt awful as she tied it on, because I knew I had nothing with me that I could give to her in return. I thanked her and she just smiled, hugged me, and then asked me to play the games with her again.

These kids were just like us. The girl who gave me the gifts was just like me. They dressed just like we did, laughed louder, and danced far more gracefully; yet their lives stood in stark contrast with ours. As we pulled away from Roberto Clemente on the first day we were there, my chaperone quieted us down and said, “You guys, look down this street. This is where these kids live. This is what they go home to every night…” I looked out the window and what I saw broke my heart. The kids who had become our friends and our equals were walking down the dirt road to their homes made of pieces of sheet metal and cardboard propped up between trees.

I can’t really put into words how I felt when I saw that scene. It didn’t seem real.

It didn’t seem possible. Those kids, who were so happy, so fun-loving, and so giv-

ing, had next to nothing. Their nearly automatic acceptance of us made me feel so ignorant and selfish. Those kids taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. They could have judged us from the very moment we entered their school, but instead they opened their hearts and befriended us. They shared what little they had and gave more love then than any of us knew how to give. The same courage I saw on the faces of the people in La Basura radiated from the smiles of these kids.

We went to Managua to serve the kids of Roberto Clemente School, to help them improve their futures, but I feel that I received much more than I gave. What I experienced down there was real. It wasn’t just an ad on TV asking me to send money to help poor children, it was poor children.

It was one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever had – to be in the midst of extreme poverty and to witness its ruthless effects.

My visit to Nicaragua provided me with an entirely new perspective on my life. I realized just how much I take for granted. It amazes me how God can turn an ordinary high school Spanish service trip into such a life-changing experience. In the midst of poverty, the Nicaraguans I encountered survived purely on love. They gave and accepted love like nothing else in the world mattered. This experience continues to remind me that I should love unconditionally and serve others whenever I get the chance. I believe there are certain things you can only learn about yourself by being immersed in an unfamiliar environment. For me, it took witnessing children digging through trash for food to realize just how much I take for granted.

And it took a bracelet, given by a girl who had nothing to give, for me to truly understand selflessness and generosity.

Henry David Thoreau once said, “For however mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.” The people I met in Nicaragua painted a brilliant picture of how this statement is brought to life.

For them, this is much more than an idea – it’s a way of life.

A few weeks after the interviews, my brother and I both received acceptance letters from ArtsWork, saying we were chosen to be in the mosaic group. I didn’t know what to expect of the progra m. I was nervous because I wasn’t sure if it was going to be something very serious or if it was going to fun and relaxing. Either way, I knew one great benefit of this job, and that was the fact that I was getting paid to do something I love, which is making art.

The progra m began mid-June and lasted until late July. We drove to St. Paul from Northfield each day often commuting with my parents. It was a great experience to work and experience the “big” city, much as an adult does. We worked at the Ecolab Plaza in tents which ArtsWork provided from 9:30a m - 3:30pm each day. One of the most interesting experiences each day was traveling on the buses downtown St. Paul to Su mmit Brewing Company where my dad is employed. We met people from all walks of life on the bus – many memories for my brother and me.

The goal of our progra m was to make a sculpture, designed by Sharra, which was commissioned by the Stepping Stone Theatre. But before creating anything, we needed to learn how to use the right tools and supplies. Sharra taught everyone the basics of making mosaics and large sculptures. Making the sculpture was fun because we were able to get a little dirty mixing the cement for the base of the sculpture… it was a lot of work. The weeks passed quickly and the sculpture was looking better and better.

When the sculpture was finally complete, it looked wonderful! We had also all wrapped up our personal pieces which would be sold to the public and fa milies in the end celebration to help fund ArtsWork. The art movers ca me to our tent and somehow moved the 2000-pound sculpture… slowly but surely. The ending celebration was a lot of fun. Other ArtsWork tea ms, the dance and music group, performed and were both very entertaining.

All of the other art groups (like photography, clay and cera mics) were also selling their works. Our group was very successful and we sold all of our pieces.

Overall, the ArtsWork progra m was so much fun and it was a great experience. I learned so many things of art and the process of art. This experience will undoubtedly help me in my future of art and business. I also met new friends that I a m still I a m still in contact with today. Although my brother and I were probably the only kids that weren’t from the Saint Paul area I think that anyone interested in art would also enjoy the progra m and have a great experience making art.

Pieced Together: THe BusineSs of art written and photographed by danica myers

You are in Minneapolis, driving down Central Avenue. Taking a right turn onto a side-street, you suddenly find yourself on a rough road that ends in an open parking area, an L-shaped warehouse building framing one corner. It appears you have found your way to a dead end, the home of an abandoned building. However, with an adventurous step through the archway entrance of the Northrup King Building you find yourself in a rather large artist community where hundreds of artists are busily working in their studios.

On the top floor at the end of the hall, a large mosaic archway invites curiosity to enter the studio of 28 year-old artist Sharra Frank. In the front room, a light fixture is being set into place to illuminate the embellished mirrors that hang on the walls.

A tall, sandy-haired woman introduces herself as Sharra and excitedly explains what all the activity is about.

The front room of her studio is being transformed into a gallery space in preparation for Minneapolis’ annual Art Attack the following weekend, a three-day event where all Minneapolis art galleries and studios open their doors, giving the public a chance to meet artists and participate in the city’s ever-growing art scene.

Being involved in the art scene is something that Frank emphasized over and over again throughout our conversation. Making connections, or “networking“, is essential to getting your work out there, she explained, and for her, that is one of the biggest advantages of the Art Attack.

Even as a child Frank knew that she wanted to be an artist and was always inventing art projects for herself. She was not competitive at sports but when it came to coloring contests, she was determined to win them all. Although Frank‘s life as an artist began as soon as she could pick up a crayon, her journey into focusing on art as a business began in her college years.

An important part of starting a business, she told me, is playing with your product and making it

vocate of mentoring young artists. “I think about the people who helped me and I want to help others.“ She teaches classes and workshops in her studio and shares practical advice and suggestions from her first-hand experience in building her own business. Plus, teaching is a great way to help pay for the bills and to meet people, she says. Bouncing ideas off of others is huge, Frank explained. “It is important to have someone to talk through your work so you’re not on your own floating around.”

unique. You need to have a product that people want to talk about. After some of her own experimentation, Frank talked to professors and other artists about her work in order to receive feedback. “It’s important to have someone to talk it through so you’re not out on your own floating around,”she told me. Feedback is what keeps you grounded and keeps you growing.

Frank started calling people like shop owners and galleries not necessarily to see if they would show her work but more to tell them about what she was doing and get feedback from them as well. But it wasn’t easy for her. “I would call people I didn’t know even though that was hard for me because I was shy… [but] if you are passionate about an idea, people get excited and want to help you,” Sharra explained. “I have not come across someone who isn’t supportive,” she said. Frank’s secret to confidence and overcoming fear is that she removes herself from her work in a sense and pretends that she’s someone else. She explained, “You need to detach a little so you don’t get too hard on yourself“.

When Frank was already starting her own business in college, other students would ask her how she knew what she was doing, and she told them that she didn’t know. She was making it up and learning as she tried new tactics.

Frank finds strength and support through a mentor-relationship with a previous college professor who believed in her and saw something special in her work. Because of the importance of this relationship in her own artwork, Frank a huge ad-

“It’s important to have people in your life who do similar things in order to get feedback.” She laughed as she recalled a moment with Sheryl Tuorila, a fellow mosaic artist who also rents a studio space in the Northrup King Building. Tuorila said that she thinks of Frank as a coworker. It’s not that the two labor together, but they share ideas and talk business strategy. “Community is important,” Frank repeated. “It’s all about networking and connecting with people who have connections.

Get involved in art groups, and get to know people who are doing what you want to do.”

Frank admits that at first you’re probably going to be working another job but you have to make sacrifices in order to indulge in creative work. She chuckled, “I would have an amazing wardrobe if it weren’t for my mosaic materials; all my money goes to that!” Frank first pays for her materials, then for her rented studio space, and now she is at a point where she even has a little extra. But Frank is grateful; “Doing what you love is really important and can’t be replaced by a higher income.”

Sharra Frank is proof that with passion and motivation, one can accomplish things that one didn’t even know how to do. I left her forth floor studio with a piece of advice that both encourages and motivates: “Success takes time and if you keep doing your best work, that’s all you can do.”

Too often do I hear the words “same old same old” to the generic question of “how are things going?” No more! I want to be a dynamic character, a spontaneous adventurer... like the characters in my favorite books. As an English major, I sometimes think about how my reality compares to the reality an author can create in a fictional work. Is there a way of taking the real and putting it in the perspective of the fictional?

Realistically, my life is not very exciting. I go to work, I go to class, I do homework - all dismally lacking in the action field. It took a seemingly insignificant event to launch me into an exploration of what my life could be like if I suddenly incorporated elements of my favorite fictional stories into my life.

My college has an extensive public bus system including many Double Decker buses that were brought over from London. While this may not be important information, what is important is that on a certain day after a certain class, I missed my Double Decker bus. Instead of waiting for a normal bus, I decided to call a friend and take a nice stroll home. I took off at a brisk pace and dialed my friend Lissa, excited to catch up. After a block or two, I spotted my Shakespeare professor, not 50 yards away from me. I had never been to this professor’s office hours but that had not kept me from admiring her from afar. No longer thinking clearly at all, I channeled my inner spy and whispered, “It’s my Professor; I think I’m going to follow her.” Lissa quickly helped me formulate a game plan. With her furtive instructions in my ear, I picked up the pace. I would need to position myself so I could pass my professor on the other side of the street, putting me in the optimal position to cross back slightly in front of her and, still on the phone, casually strike up a conversation. Objective: brownie points.

I crept in the shadow of my professor, following her down ally ways which divided fraternity houses into a small neighborhood, using my powerful stride to put me in position for the pass. I became overzealous in my speed walking but upon realizing my tactical error, I had already passed too far in front of my

target, effectively making the casual hello impossible and awkward. Biding farewell to Lissa, I decide my best alternate course of action was to keep walking, as I think the professor had noticed me. I stopped at a corner, somewhat confused at my location, and called my roommate. Although my mission of obtaining brownie points had failed, I felt like a true adventurer.

I adapted fiction into my life to create my own narrative. For once, I got to see myself as a complex character instead of just a collection of quirky interests and daily activities. Instead of just analyzing a novel from the perspective of realism, I learned that we can all infuse a sense of adventure and discovery into our own reality by using the scope of fiction. By taking a step outside of reality, I am able to more clearly see the details of my life that are often overlooked.

As with any piece of fiction, there is often a moral or theme and here is mine: if you are going to follow your professor home, have a friend ready with a getaway car.

It was a brilliant, bomb-proof plan involving Chicken Alfredo and my guitar.

I would serenade her on the balcony while she dined, and once captivated with me, she would have no choice but to accept my offer to accompany me to prom.

It didn’t work as I had hoped. Instead, I played an amazingly terrible cover of her favorite song and I still don’t know how I messed up pasta. On prom night I rented Fight Club and had a bag of popcorn. Enjoying the kettle corn, I felt really dumb. I had thought that girls liked boys who played guitar because I had been told that girls like boys who play guitar. I wanted a girl to like me because I was told that was what I, as a high school boy, should want.

That was only one of the brilliant ideas I’ve had to impress girls. In high school I wasn’t one of the cool kids. I was a bit chubby and fairly “uncool.” I played in the drum line of the marching band - the coolest part of the marching band, mind you - yet still the marching band. I made okay grades and had a couple of close friends. I never had that tight group of guy friends who hung out all the time. I drifted from clique to clique. I called myself a floater. Truth is that I never really fit in anywhere.

I admired the soccer players and basketball players because of how cool they were. I wanted to be them with their groups of friends, their approval from the teachers, and the girls who fell all over them. I thought the girls liked them because they could grow goatees, something I am just recently able to do. I really wanted that little splotch of facial hair. Truth is, no matter how bad a high school boy’s facial hair appears, it looks amazing to those other boys who can’t grow anything at all. I didn’t shave for months and grew some terrible-looking chops, but no goatee. I later learned that most girls don’t like facial hair.

Guys do a lot of stupid stuff to impress girls. We do push ups before going out so there is more blood in our muscles to make us look bigger, we learn random worthless facts to seem smart in times of crisis, and keep up-to-date on how to be cool. While having coffee the other day, I watched some high school age guys hanging out, laughing and having a good time. Then a group of girls walked past, and the boys completely changed how they were acting. Two of them sat up straight and kind of flexed, one of them punched another one, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Not because I thought it was funny, but because I remember doing that.

I think there are a lot of guys who are unsure of their footing and so latch onto anything nearby that might give worth or help them to define themselves. The major problem is a lack of confidence, and that only goes away with time. As guys, we need to become cool with ourselves and who we are. In his book Through Painted Deserts, Portland-based author Donald Miller notes that “There are two types of men in this world – one is looking for a woman to make his life complete and the other is looking for a woman to join his complete life.” Not that one type is better than the other, but I think most guys are the first type in high school. Movies, TV, and billboards tell us that we need a girl to set things right in our lives and that we as guys won’t be complete until we have a girl. It’s not that Adam wasn’t meant to have an Eve, it’s that seeking an Eve should not be the focus and drive of all our actions. If someone is not confident alone, having a girlfriend won’t fix that. Guys ought to have fun being guys, enjoying life, and becoming confident in ourselves - and comfortable with our lack of facial hair.

written by

megan pro

sen

No sabía como me fuera a cambiar. I didn’t how it was going to change me. But that didn’t matter. I knew I would be transformed through my experience abroad whether I was ready or not. Though worries and fears seemed to pulsate through my veins as I waited to embark on my life’s greatest adventure, nothing was big enough to stand in the way of my welcoming the foreseeable renovation.

My desire for change was actually one of the reasons I chose to study abroad in the Dominican Republic for three months. It was not the first time I had lived and studied in another country. My previous month-long excursions to Spain and Mexico only made me more anxious for my next opportunity to see the world. Each time that I left home, it became harder to come back because of my nearly insatiable hunger for world travel that grew with every trip. I had never experienced learning in this way before. There was passion I didn’t know existed in the academic world.

All of a sudden, I felt as though I couldn’t absorb enough of the culture; I couldn’t get enough of the taste of the language on my tongue. I had fallen in love.

When I stepped onto the airplane that took me to Santiago, Dominican Republic, I did so knowing that it was my last chance to study abroad. I had to take advantage of this opportunity and live it to its fullest. It was the summer before my senior year as a busy college student with several jobs, clubs, and three majors to occupy my time.

It came down to a “now or never” situation and I had to jump at the opportunity. I landed on the island with the firm intention of immersing myself as entirely as possible into what I considered my new home. Though I did enjoy the resorts and museum tours on occasion with my student group, I wasn’t there to sight-see or vacation. I was there to study, to work in the community, and most of all, to make it my life. I realized from the start that those three months would be a very small window of time for all that I wished to accomplish. However, I knew that with dedicated and conscious effort I would not just see the country,

but experience it with all my senses and savor every flavor that Santiago had to offer—both literally and figuratively. I wanted the Dominican Republic to become a part of me.

I not only wanted to leave my own mark, I wanted to be branded. I may have only had three consecutive months to commit physically to that country, but emotionally I was in it for the long haul. I already planned on keeping it with me for the rest of my life.

I’ll admit that right now that my expectations were a tad lofty, but I had spent thousands of dollars and given up a summer’s worth of office hours and paychecks to be in the Dominican Republic. I was chasing my dream of becoming fluent in Spanish and I didn’t take it lightly. I did come upon some roadblocks at the beginning of my trip when I realized that not everyone who I was traveling with had the same high hopes for their study abroad experience.

Seeing friendships form without me and not wanting to be excluded, I put my more academic aspirations aside in order to meet my social ones. Though I do feel that I became closer to and more accepted by my peers by stifling my initial intensity, those six weeks of bar-hopping with big groups of English-speaking students really inhibited my development, making that time ultimately a source of regret. In the end, the fun that I had remained on a mostly superficial level and that wasn’t where I wanted to be at the halfway point of my summer.

In the middle of July, I was given a chance for renewal of my original ambitions. The scholarly part of my time in Santiago was complete and I said goodbye to the major-

ity of students who headed back home after the month and a half university program ended. Left with only a small fraction of the study abroad students who, like me, remained to volunteer for several weeks, I felt the resurgent need to connect with the local people and lifestyles. Teaching English at a nearby organization through the Catholic archdiocese allowed me an instant insider ticket into the community. Spending everyday with two classrooms full of Dominican children (whose language abilities required me to speak almost entirely in Spanish throughout the lessons) helped to guide me back to the path on which I had begun my journey to acculturation and growth. People began to recognize me in the street as I took my daily trek to teach at the school and I was greeted with warm “Hola teacher”s from both my students and their neighbors. I could feel myself becoming attached to the city and its people. It was becoming a part of me and I no longer thought of myself as a visitor. I lived in Santiago. It was my home. This is what I had been looking for.

At home, my warm and welcoming host parents and I began to form a relationship that felt like a real family.

We talked every afternoon over arroz con habichuelas, and on Sunday afternoons after church we would laugh and dance with the smell of delicious smoky barbeque wafting through the brightly decorated back porch. I felt like I had known them for years and delighted in the care and affection with which they treated me, calling me their American daughter and meaning it. I also became closer to my neighbors, other students and people my age, and began building friendships. I could hear my Spanish improving and becoming more fluid as I laughed and joked with my new friends and family members. I dropped the s’s off my words just like the Dominicans and caught

myself comfortably lacing my sentences with the region’s unique colloquialisms. Others began to compliment my progress (sometimes with surprise) and less and less was I forced to stand around quietly with a puzzled look on my face. I understood and I loved it! Although I still stuck out because of my appearance, I was making a place for myself in Santiago like I had never been able to do anywhere else outside of my own home state.

August came around much too quickly that summer and I soon realized that while three months may be enough time to feel comfortable and adjusted to a culture, they were not enough time to feel accomplished and complete in my time abroad. There was so much I had left to see and to discover, so many people to whom I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I knew coming into my study abroad experience that I would be sad to leave with no real guarantee of return, but I never imagined that three whole months (a period of time that had once seemed quite sizable) would be a mere blink of an eye and that it would affect me so deeply. It’s hard for me to even put into words what exactly changed in me after spending the summer living and learning in the Dominican Republic. It’s not just that I was able to meet my goal of gaining a firm grasp on my chosen second language. Perhaps it is my new understanding of myself as a global citizen, my self-identity that spans oceans and continents. I see the world through a new set of eyes—the eyes of a woman who has stepped outside of her entire realm of comfort into the unknown and unfamiliar and made it her second abode, a woman I admire and am proud to be.

Looks Like

Sunshine: a tribute to the life of katherine ann olson

I can make all things well, I know how to make all things well, I desire to make all things well, I will make all things well.

And you will see with your own eyes that every kind of thing will be well.

-God, in the words of Julian of Norwich (A favorite quote, as listed on Katherine’s Facebook profile.)

photo provided by Brad Abbott

Katherine Ann Olson was a victim of homicide on October 25, 2007, after responding to an online posting for a babysitting job. She was well-known to many in the Alive community here in Minneapolis, and she truly embodied a life of authentic love and genuine care for the world around her. After her passing, even people who had not known her personally were deeply impacted by her infectious spirit and legacy. The following is only a small collection of words written to honor this amazing young woman, and we share them with you in loving memory of Katherine.

Katherine was only 24 years old with a full life ahead of her. She had been accepted into a Masters of Spanish program in Madrid, Spain next summer. She was the top of her class, the valedictorian of her high school class of over 600 and a summa cum laude graduate of St. Olaf College in 2006. A theatre and Hispanic studies double-major and a lover of music and books, Katherine was known as the woman who “looked like sunshine” to many. Not only did her reddish-blonde curly hair and freckles give the image of a bright sunshine, her personality shone everywhere she went. People said that when she walked into a room, everything became a bit brighter. She had a ton of energy and wit, practically singing her way into rooms. She truly danced like there was no tomorrow, and she loved like she had never been hurt. Katherine believed in the good of people and befriended everyone; she knew how to see at the core of others and bring out the best in people. She was the one who sat with the outcasts, who got the crying baby to laugh, and who offered hugs and words of affirmation to all who were within arms reach. She was gracious, joyful, curious, adventurous, and beautiful. She is God’s beloved child, and we miss her deeply.

– Sarah Sevcik, Katherine’s best friend

“The light shines in the darkness,

Anyone can become angry--that is easy.

But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way-this is not easy.

-Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (A favorite quote, as listed on Katherine’s Facebook profile.)

The Shadows, Go deeper tonight.

The Tears, Stream further down our cheeks.

The Hearts, Of many are hurting.

Our Souls, Wither with this unwanted change.

The Thieves, Have accomplished the sadness.

We Strive, For happiness and a painless life.

We Remember, The beautiful life that has touched humanity.

The Strangers, Grieving as well.

Loved Ones, The World, Being watched and wrapped in holy arms.

Through messengers some knew Christ Through each other we strengthen our selves with his right To his wisdom we hold tight Through the dark path we walk for he is the light For the long ways there is no worry for he is by the side Keeps us company through the day and night.

- Mari Johnson, Minneapolis, Minn., written in remembrance of Katherine.

Mari is a 19-year-old student at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD. Background image, Strength, also by Mari Johnson. Painting inspired by the life of Katherine Olson in loving support of Sarah Sevcik and the Olson Family.

- Sandra Kazi, Sudan.

Written in loving support of Sarah Sevcik. Sandra is an 18-year-old refugee from South Sudan living in Cairo, Egypt which is where she and Sarah met and became friends.

and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John 1:5

Found it beautiful

poetry by amalie kwassman photograph by melissa kruse

“Found it Beautiful” grew in response to the U.S. Senate’s acceptance of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act permits federal prosecution of hate crimes based on a person’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. The Senate’s expansion of the definition of “hate” reflects its expansion of the definition of love and what is beautiful.

Hope has been renewed. Acceptance for women and the GLTBQ community is becoming a reality.

Once you discover the beauty in others, the beauty is found in you.

– Amalie Kwassman

just because she was woman who found love in between the illicit doorways of other women and found it beautiful just because she was man whose face a mascara mosaic A museum to modern masculinity and found it beautiful just because just because she speaks today her own words not syllables stretched across her larynx not verses stitched along her throat like the sad weavings grandmother made before there were identities religions there was life confirming life before there was silence there were voices raw like the synchronized intertwining of two women on the platform immigrants to the operation of subway systems Crochet And the confounding conflagration Between their palms A cordial reception to the intersections Of passions run parallel to 34th street always no-one looked no-one knew but they found it beautiful.

I see only my next step on the path, but this I offer to you all: On Healing In the tradition of the Navajo, who currently live in the Southwestern United States, there is a point in the process of creation when two of the Holy People (the gods) slay the monsters, which were born out of humanity’s immorality. The monsters are destructive creatures; they are getting in the way of the people’s correct perspective and life-giving path. Four of these monsters plead their cases to the holy ones and are allowed to survive: sickness, poverty, old age, and lice. My sociology class was discussing how it makes sense to describe sickness, poverty and old age as monsters that continue to plague humanity, as suffering that the gods allow to remain unhealed. We had a little more trouble incorporating “lice” into our list of the core ills of society… we wondered why the Navajo, in their spiritual explanation of human suffering, included this detail, which made us think of elementary school nurses and bad-smelling shampoo.

Our professor suggested that this might be an element of humor in the Navajo community’s scholarship. Since the earliest contact of anthropologists with the Navajo creation tradition, there has surely never been a generation spared from the itching, irritation, and general pestilence of lice – and the persistence required to get rid of them. Above all, especially in modern times, lice are plagues of nuisance. As I have been thinking about healing lately, I’ve noticed more and more levels of illness and wounded places that need healing. Personally, I spend a fair amount of time despairing over not only what is most deeply disturbing or fearsome in the world, but also what merely “itches” me. Often, if it is “not a big deal,” I forget to seek change. Sometimes it takes a physical manifestation of inconvenience, a seemingly insignificant physical thing that is yet a powerful obstacle to where I can go and what I can do, to inspire me to pursue a remedy.

In October of last year, I was studying abroad in India, when somehow, and much to my dismay, I got head lice. Suffice it to say that the emotional memories are strong, and the smell of incense still makes me want to scratch! This episode - my personal encounter with a monster whose name is “tiny creepy bugs” - is not the story for today, however. It was a few weeks ago, when I was unexpectedly hospitalized, that I began reminiscing about my experience with lice; out of time in the hospital came the cry for healing that I will recount.

I was in the hospital for two nights after my physician in the Eating Disorder Treatment program found my heart rate to be in the 30’s at my Tuesday afternoon check-up. The outpatient treatment program is something for which I travel to the hospital to attend weekly appointments, and in my mind the medical/physical checkups had so far been secondary to the psychological and emotional education and support I receive there. A struggle with anorexia in middle school left me clinically underweight for several years, but the majority of my time since then has been spent in physical health, with my main complaint being varying amounts of mental and emotional turmoil. So, on that recent Tuesday afternoon, I was shocked when the doctor said, “I have to put you in intensive care.” With this sentence, and the ample time it allowed me to sit in bed and think, several things came to my awareness.

First, I recognized the itches of annoyance: I felt fine and yet I was lying with severely compromised patients in the ICU; I wanted to read my homework instead of waiting around for the intake process; I wanted to go to the bathroom without being hooked up to the heart monitor and IV machine; I was embarrassed by the flapping hospital gown. Mostly, I wanted to understand the situation. Was I really at risk? What did this mean?

I truly encountered my own poverty. I did not have a wealth of peace, and I did not currently have the resources to know my own needs. Instead, I was afraid – the fears of losing control taunted me, and I was afraid to eat. Ooh, I was afraid to need and accept assistance. This led me to ponder my illness. What my soul longed for, I was somehow not achieving: strength of spirit, mind, character, and body. Pieces of me were not well, were not whole and united. My internal guilt and shame about this overwhelmed me with defeat. How could I allow this to happen, in my situation of youth and plenty, when some people are surrounded by starvation and disease? Old is what I felt, like my competence and vigor had dwindled too quickly away.

What if the part of me that was terrified to embrace the abundance of life, to be filled to overflowing, to let go of my monsters … what if that desperate part would never leave me?

Sometimes, there is a straightforward, albeit tedious, fix to the monstrous hurdles that lurk in our visions of the present and future. When I had head lice, my mom had to ship shampoo all-round-about the world, but then I washed, rinsed and combed, repeat, repeat, and repeat, and it was over.

At times, the annoying, itchy problems are the ones I ignore.

But in the hospital, there was a big fat inconvenience that made me acknowledge the volume of my suffering, the monsters that I had helped create. I prayed for release from pestilence, and some peace and humor were restored; I mused about how many patients were prescribed extra dessert in the hospital. I asked for a return of gratitude, to rejoice in what I had. I begged for health of faith and spirit, to be well in my whole being and find again the thrill of life and future. I saw how multiple monsters scrambled my path, and only someone Holy could begin to clear the air, to make it straight and draw me forward.

Healing. In my history with disordered eating, not only have I dipped in and out of the healing waters of God’s perspective and path, I have also often mistaken a monster for a “mere” annoyance, “not a big deal”. In truth, I’ve been ambivalent about both my need and my desire for healing. It can seem like I’m in control of what I’m creating, or that letting go and opening up to life is too much, that lifting the fog is too scary. Yet, the feelings of frustration, defeat, and desperation that those two short nights were able to elicit were signs of a struggle, a dance between God and the monsters and me. I have hope that my time in the hospital was itchy enough to keep me stepping into the shower until I’m clean and renewed.

“Lord, we are young! We want health and vigor, romance, mystery, adventure. We need Father and Friend. We are already wearied and broken, we have seen hurt and confusion. We have fears about the past and the future. Fortify us with hope and your promise of the fullness of life for those who follow Your call. Capture us in the days of our youth, before we can age too quickly in heart. Lord, turn this day to peace beyond understanding that will glorify You, and to wisdom to share in the length of days You have prepared for us here. You bring us life and earthly death – grant us faith, hope, love, life everlasting!

Amen.”

written by martha franke watercolors by maria wentworth

I was schooled in life at Learning Journeys, my life coaching school, where I learned some basic choices I have in how I live my life. Many of the choices were comfortable for me, like honoring the people in front of me and valuing diversity. However, the one choice which got stuck in my throat, so to say, was to ‘Speak your truth.” The description given was to “Say what is there for you without blame or judgment. By honoring your truth you maintain authenticity and develop inner muscle to live life powerfully.”

Being the people pleaser that I had been for 43 years, that idea was a hard one to swallow. I was also the peace keeper in my family, avoiding conflict at almost all costs as I grew up.

However, contorting my one’s words and actions to please others and to avoid conflict doesn’t go well with being authentic and genuine, even if it is well intentioned. It generates self-imposed shackles, and over time the result can be a burning resentment, a loss of knowing what your own opinions and truth are, and a diminishing of your sense of personal power.

You are also denying the world from knowing the valuable insights you have to share.

I started to gain my trust in my voice at our church’s annual women’s retreats.

At the first retreat I attended, I was too cowed by the brilliance I perceived in the others to recognize any in myself. But at the second, I summoned up my courage and started to share a little of my thoughts. I was encouraged by the positive feedback I received, and was stunned at the third as our woman pastor asked whether I had thought about becoming a pastor.

Whoa. That gave a huge boost to my confidence. After paying more attention to my own thoughts, I’d found inklings of wisdom and soul-felt questions worth sharing with the group. The external validation brought to my astonished attention my admission, that Martha Miller Franke (me!) had wisdom.

But often it’s easier to make changes and grow in the abnormal, wonderful setting of a retreat than it is to do in the familiar surroundings of the day to day. A couple of years later came my further schooling in life at Learning Journeys, with the loving suggestion that we speak our truth – everyday.

I remember the next turning point. My husband was shaving, and I was wrestling with whether to bring up something that had bothered me from the day before. I asked myself, “Do I just let it pass, thereby avoiding a potential clash, but leaving the issue to rest in a nest of my resentment?” With the challenge to “speak my truth” as my girder, I spoke about that issue to my husband, being careful to leave out any judgment or blame, just stating what the issue was for me. I steeled myself for a conflict.

Much to my amazement, what resulted was a quick resolution of something that I could have stewed over for days. Not only was the issue resolved, our relationship was given the opportunity to deepen and become more alive, once I took what I thought was a scary step.

What I’m getting at girls is that you don’t have to wait until you are 43 years old to find your voice! Are you (or someone else) giving you the message to be quiet with our own thoughts, being the one to remold your words and perhaps even your thoughts to what works well for the others? Imagine how much more fertile and rich your relationships can be if you speak your truth. Envision yourself free to speak from your experience and perceptions. What might others learn about you? What might you learn about yourself?

When I first saw the tagline for the Listen column (“words of wisdom from someone older and wiser”) I knew right away that I had something to say about it. The point isn’t to absorb someone else’s wisdom, it is to listen to and discern your own. Come to your own point of astonishment and declare “I have wisdom,” and share what you experience and think with the world. Listen to and act on your inner wisdom and live who you are at your core, rather than mine.