My dad taught me the biggest lesson three days ago.

In case you haven't realized, I'm a very loud individual. One of my youth Pastor's always used to say upon greeting me, "Whoa, whoa, where's the volume button?" Upon this statement, I would begin to scream in laughter.

I'm loud...I laugh loud, I talk loud, I argue loud, I cry loud, the list goes on.

My dad is a silent person in the morning. He likes to sit down, play on his iPad, and eat his breakfast in almost complete silence. Sometimes when I come in the kitchen and open the refrigerator, close the refrigerator, open a cabinet, close the cabinet, and after a series of events, want to engage in conversation in the morning, he goes, "Renae, Renae, Renae, shhhhh, not now." To this statement I respond, "But dad!!!!!!" I normally leave the kitchen after, rolling my eyes and mumbling something negative.

I came home from somewhere in the afternoon a few days ago and began to tell him about my experience, he said, "Renae, shhh, not so loud." I responded, "Dad, what the heck, this is who I am." He immediately said, "And this is who I am." My statement had a connotation of, "Just deal with it, I'm loud," and his statement was said with the same underlying statement, "Just deal with it, I'm not."

This taught me so much in so few words.

Compromise man, and take the other person's needs and treat them as if they were your own.

GOD Manifesto

Forgive me for sounding cliché but I do not believe in religion, I am not irreligious. I believe in God I believe that God exists outside of this temporal discourse that we exist in. God is the creator of everything ...There is nothing new under the sun... There is no tangible comprehensible thing that did not proceed from the mouth of God at the beginning. Existence and its appearance of self sustainability is God's masterpiece. And humanity is the apex of that work. This is proven by His own decision to step into the time and space that He formed with His own lips. Clothed in skin and bound by time, God sympathized with us. This was not for the sake of experiencing His created existence because who better to understand existence and humanity than its very architect. Instead He came in order to reconcile the apex of his masterpiece, us, back to himself.

Sin is that which necessitated the symbolic and very actual death of the God of heaven on our behalves. Jesus, the son of God being wholly God and entirely human, offered eternity and existence with God beyond this temporal discourse. He did this for reasons that have to be sufficed by the word grace. Grace is a fancy and concise way of saying 'Humanity has an utter inability to understand why God gave it eternity with Him.” Humanity seems to understand that this “grace thing” has something to do with unconditional love. But the concept of “un-conditionality” is slippery in our hands as well because we exist within the constraints of conditions, like time and space. Understanding that God operates outside of any condition and has actually set the parameters for all conditions, from breath to gravity, allows for the possibility and actuality of love that is unconditional. Once grace attaches itself to a member of humanity it is carried by that member and that member is said to retain what is called salvation. A grace bearer or human with salvation is then transformed into an agent of change that posses the authority of the unconditional God that captivated them.

Grace works perpetually and is maintained as God extends Himself to us. Quite literally God connects us to Himself, He communes with us in order to reveal the truth of Himself over time. This extension of Himself is His Spirit, the ether’s of His existence, the very animating force that constitutes all life and most importantly His own reality. Life creating and sustaining Spirit... God perpetuating spirit... stand alone love at its purest form, spirit.. that very spirit attaches itself to those who are carriers of God's grace.

Profesora Fountain

Her name is Profesora Fountain and I admire her very much. I've been very fortunate to have had the teachers that I've had throughout my 18 years of education (preschool, kindergarten-high school, and when I graduate, I will have spent 5 years in the ivory tower.) Fountain just adds to the list.

She is this beautiful Argentinian woman. Have you ever looked at someone and after they speak Spanish think to yourself, "You speak Spanish?" Well, that's what I thought until I remembered that it isn't uncommon for an Argentinian to have blond hair and blue eyes, Latinos are a spectrum of features.

I went into her office last May, I was looking for a Spanish counselor because I wanted to see if there was any possibility for me to graduate earlier. Having only taken one semester of intermediate Spanish, I expected to be turned down when I asked to take SPAN 160 during the summer, an advanced course. She told me that I would be allowed to take the course, that it would be hard but that I could do it, and that she and other Spanish tutors would be available to help me. When I walked out of her office, she gave me a hug and offered me a huge smile. The class was about Cuban culture through film and every film she turned on either English or Spanish subtitles, offered me supplemental books in Spanish and in English, and was an encouragement to me every step of the way.

I found myself at her office at the beginning of the year, trying to find out when my nearest graduation date would be. She realized that I could graduate this Spring, she signed off all of my papers, responded to every email, and told me that I would be immersed in the language, with no turning back.

Well, I'm taking her class for SPAN 102B, a class about Latino culture since the time of the Olmecs all the way to hoy en dia. We had to turn in the first page of our monografia and I did exceptionally well, she wrote on my paper, "Adelante! Me encanta tu comienzo!" I walked out of class with a smile on my face and then I automatically felt guilty.

Here's why.

I tend to have a low self-esteem when it comes to academia. I do believe that I am a smart person but I've always had a fear of not graduating or failing yet another class at State. I also tend to take praise from my teachers and use it as a reinforcement to assure myself that I am capable, and that's dangerous. The reassurance should Phillipians 4:13 and that the Joy of the Lord is my strength. I've received numerous compliments on my papers throughout my education, one made me cry, one professor pulled me aside and told me that I NEEDED to go to graduate school and that there was no reason as to why I should not go. Often times, because I respect these men and women who praise me, I use their opinions to encourage myself. I am a very honest writer when I do research and often times I incorporate myself and my personal logic and beliefs into my writing, and it's cool that it gets noticed and respected. However, I should be confident enough in myself to go to graduate school without their compliments and opinions. I cannot base my talent and intelligence off of what they think, I need to esteem myself.

Yesterday Profesora stated that due to a complication, another woman will have to take over our class. This made me extremely sad because I adore Profesora Fountain.

She's sweet, educated, and has dedicated her life to her cause and I always respect people like that. Her research has been based on Jose Marti and Cuba, she visits many times throughout the year.

She doesn't exactly know when her last day is, but for the record, I want to say, "Muchisimas gracias por todo, me ha inspirado mucho, ha sido una fuente de animo, y espero que todo vaya bien con usted."

Phuc

One day before I added SPAN 101B, I waited outside the classroom and sat down next to an adorable, elderly Asian man. Come to find out, his name is Phuc, and he was already enrolled in the class.

I think I sat next to him during one class session. He has this welcoming and sweet presence. He has these deep brown puppy eyes and he's balding, otherwise, he's a silver fox. He looks like someone I would affectionately call "Grandpa Phuc", even though there is no blood relation, kind of like my Uncle Eddie, he's not my uncle through any blood relation, but he is, in fact, yesterday I heard him tell the Spanish Worship Leader that I was his niece. :)

I have a lot of respect for Phuc, he's a native Vietnamese speaker, is well versed in French, and I'm assuming he is either a Spanish major or minor because SPAN 101B is an upper division course. Whenever Profesor calls on him to read a sentence, the whole classroom gets quiet, sometimes it takes him a long time to read the sentence and because of his accent, it can be a little difficult to understand, nonetheless, he still does it, and because of his diligence, his answers to grammatical questions are correct 99.9% of the time. He comes to every class session and is always very eager and attentive.

I beat myself up sometimes because I cannot pronounce certain words or speak like a native Spanish speaker but when I look at Phuc's bravery, my pity party stops. My perspective is that of an American English speaking native, I learned in a linguistics class that outsiders to a language think that foreign language is hard, but native speakers never feel that way. For me to learn Vietnamese would be very difficult, but you never hear a native Vietnamese speaker saying, "Oh my gosh, my native language is so hard." It's natural for them, duhhhh. For his native language to be Vietnamese, learn English, learn French, and learn Spanish, I'm blown away! Most people with Latino heritage won't even step foot into a Spanish class because they're ashamed that they aren't native speakers, I was almost one of them, and it's awesome to know that to some people, stuff like that doesn't even matter.