Jayne works in DC as a program coordinator for an international nonprofit. A recent college graduate, she is the jack of all trades to her supervisors: she organizes, she researches, she saves the world one photocopy at a time. Every morning, she shows up at her place of work and every morning, she wonders why.

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It’s Tuesday and I’m still recovering from the weekend. It’s not what you think – it wasn’t a typical college kid’s weekend of partying. I was protesting. Late Saturday night, I drove home to CT and woke up early the following morning to go into New York City, to the gold-domed St. Vartan Cathedral, headquarters of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church. Following Divine Liturgy, I boarded a bus taking people to Times Square to a protest. What were we protesting? April 24, 1915 – it is a day immortalized in Armenian history. On this day, several hundred leading Armenian intellectuals were gathered in the former Ottoman capital of Constantinople, and massacred.

Thus, every April 24th is the international day of remembrance of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, an event which is still unrecognized by the United States, and of course, the perpetrators, the Ottoman Turks. Sunday was not April 24th, but it was the closest Sunday to this date, so the protest was organized for this day. I joined other Armenians, who congregated at this literal cross-road of the world, Times Square. It was a protest, and it did fulfill expectations, but was it any different than what Armenians have accomplished in the past 92 years since the Genocide?

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Whenever I become disillusioned with God, it's only a matter of time before I discover the inconvenient reality; that I'm actually disillusioned with myself. Which leads, of course, to the inevitable question: How can I possibly manage to confuse the two? Lately, I've come to the end of me. I can't write, my impossible homework load piles up as I procrastinate, and sleep deprivation and stress begin to take their toll on my physical health. This is life, but not the life infused with joy and freedom that I ought to be living.

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Judaism is hard. As I begin the eight days of breadlessness that is Passover, I am reminded of this. Ours is not a religion of beliefs and faith alone – we are supposed to do and not do things, and it is often quite inconvenient.

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I wish I knew Greek and not just to keep the fraternities straight. My debate for Intro to New Testament class was entitled “Resolved: The New Testament Condemns Modern Practices of Homosexuality,” and I was assigned to the negative side with two other students. We hinged most of our argument on the fact that Paul and other New Testament writers did not know modern homosexuality as we know it.

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I was racing up the stairs to the second floor of our library this morning to make copies of some forms I needed to deliver when a painting of the crucifix caught my eye. It was an elaborate and colorful painting, and I wanted to pause and take a closer look at it, but I was aware the clock was ticking and my legs kept moving underneath me, taking me farther from it. I made a mental note to come back and take a look when I have more time. But then I thought, when will that be?

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When I met Doug, he was talking about being interviewed on Lebanese TV. Yeah, his Arabic is that good.

So when a friend of mine passed along a piece of poetry (and even that title really doesn’t describe Doug’s master work) that Doug performed at a the “Harakat” Cultural Festival at Georgetown University, I was ready to see this lively, welcoming man do something incredible.

To say I was blown away by Doug’s performance would be to put it mildly. (Warning: Tactically placed F-bombs within). For any of us who have gone through the brutal process of Arabic education, the central theme of "bab" (*and it's plural, Abwaab) in Doug's work is simultaneously hilarious and uncanny.

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There is so much to say, I imagine. Today is about remembrance, recognition, and community. It is about pain and grief, joy and love, anger and forgiveness. And yet today is as inscrutable as the last April 16, a moment in time defying our ability to give it voice.

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My fellow Faithbook blogger Liz, a.k.a. Campus Catholic, emailed me the other day asking me to compile a list of other blogs I read by young LDS members. Frankly, I was stumped. Most of the blogs I come across are targeted for the entire LDS adult community, or are targeted to the high school audience or the “youth” audience as the church calls it.

In LDS culture, I tend to notice a lack of young adults. I define young adult as an individual who is over 18, perhaps in school, or working, making the transition into full adulthood, which is easily attained by marriage. The conception that LDS youth get married extremely fast and early is obviously a stereotype, but to an extent, a true one.

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My generation was raised on Cocoa Puffs cereal and Nickelodeon cartoons, but all that saccharine dissolved for me one day in September 2001.

We had witnessed the demise of communism and lived through the awkward impeachment of our president, but by the end of the 90s, we were accustomed to excess. As a country, we were invincible; as a generation, we were privileged. The terrorist attacks of 2001 shocked us out of our stupor.

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I hope God appreciates the fact I have to ascend a mountain to get to church every Sunday. All right, it may not be a mountain but on a cozy weekend afternoon in bed with my English book and my laptop, Chapel of the Cross starts to seem pretty far away and the slight incline between my dorm room and the church building seems to slope several more degrees than usual.

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Starting this fall for the next two years, I will be a high school social studies teacher in New York City. I signed with Teach for America a couple weeks ago and am confident once my two-year commitment is over that it will be one of the best decisions I've ever made. When I found out I was offered the position, I knew I wanted to accept, but I took my sweet time accepting the offer.

But as I was contemplating my decision, a friend’s away message sent chills up my spine. It said, “It's in your moments of decision-making that your destiny is shaped.” Such a statement is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being free to make my own decisions is thoroughly empowering, something I thank God for a thousand times over. On the other hand, it can also be thoroughly terrifying. Finding the gray area is difficult, but I think I recently may have found an approach that makes decision making easier.

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So we lost to Kansas. And it wasn’t even really close. We’d made plans for replaying our NCAA tourney victory over and over at a party next Saturday. Teachers had already canceled early Tuesday classes in expectations of all-night celebrating. Instead Sunday morning brought a wave of depressed baby-blue clad zombies casting knowing empathetic looks at each other through bloodshot eyes. What the heck happened? We were supposed to win that game!

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When I was home over winter break, I rented the movie "Knocked Up" to watch with my mom. It's the story of a schlubby Jewish guy (Seth Rogan) who impregnates and then charms a hottie entertainment reporter (Katherine Heigl). My mom loved the movie. She was doubled over in laughter at times, tears coming out of her eyes. When the movie was over, I asked her how she liked it. "I don't like it when movies have Jewish guys ending up with non-Jewish girls" was her response. Intermarriage, the constant source of fear and anxiety for committed American Jews, has the ability to rear its ugly head even during a seemingly innocent movie night. Indeed, intermarriage is a huge concern as rates of Jews marrying non-Jews go up and the Jewish population decreases.

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