First week of school

I didn't really feel up to writing, but I read somewhere that if you wait for just the right time to write, you'll never write anything. I guess that was enough inspiration.

School started this week. All in all, I think I'm going to enjoy my classes. I'm taking two English classes (both professional writing courses), French 101 (because I haven't done foreign language yet, I need four semesters of it, and I decided that I didn't want to take Spanish), a theatre class (stagecraft, for my theatre minor!) and Sociology 101, to fulfill some gen ed that I still need.

Monday was incredibly busy, and very tiring. I ran around campus all day because I was trying to change some of my class times around (which always seems to happen to me). I wanted to get into a particular honors class but it conflicted with one of my writing classes; luckily, I found someone in another section who agreed to simply swap sections with me, but the honors class was full and never opened up, so perhaps it was in vain. "Simply swapping sections" turned into a half-hour affair, however, involving trotting across campus in the hot afternoon sun, finding a computer lab where we could print the yellow cards we needed, and waiting in line for the registrar's help desk so we could get it all sorted. I was twenty minutes late to the first meeting of my French 101 class, and I was aware that I was slightly stinky from all the running around. Hopefully the girl I sat next to didn't notice.

Tuesday was equally crazy. I didn't have class until the afternoon, but I drove to school early so that I could talk to a professor about possibly taking his honors class (different than the aforementioned honors class). I couldn't find decent parking because parking at UNM is an absolute nightmare if you don't buy a parking pass (which I didn't; must have slipped my mind amidst the wedding planning last semester), so I had to park a few blocks away and trudge uphill in the hot sun. I finally got to the professor's office (on the complete opposite side of campus) only to find out that his class was also full and there was no way for me to squeeze in.

Yesterday, I took the bus to school for the first time. It takes a while, because I have to drive to the bus station (about fifteen minutes from where we live), and the bus ride to campus itself takes another twenty minutes. But it's nice because I don't have to walk as much or deal with trying to find (the elusive) free parking spots, and I'm saving gas to boot. This afternoon, however, I accidentally got on the wrong bus going home. I realized my mistake, got off at the next stop, and spent the next forty minutes or so trying to figure out how to get going the right way. This involved several phone calls to Jordan asking for his help, waiting at one stop while trying to avoid the uncomfortable small talk from strange men (questions like, "Where are you headed", and "Where's home for you?"), waiting for another twenty minutes at the wrong stop, waiting to cross the street while trying not to make eye contact with more strange men staring at me from their cars (or shouting, or whistling . . . ), and then finally getting on the right bus and making it home over an hour later than I had expected to. Did I mention that all of that waiting was done in the hot, hot sun? I am not slightly sunburned.

It's different going to school without Jordan. I don't like being away from him all day, and usually by the time I get home he's heading off to work, so we only really see each other at night. And I'm working, too, mostly evenings; for instance, tomorrow I'll be gone from about ten in the morning to almost ten at night, because I'm going to work as soon as I get off of school in the afternoon. I enjoy school, but it's definitely an adjustment being married and in school. And it's been a tiring week.

Thoughts and a Birthday Dinner

I've been meaning to post for a while, so here we are.

Not a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. I finally got my school schedule figured out (somewhat; still hoping to get into one more class), and now I keep swaying back and forth between looking forward to classes starting and feeling apprehensive about classes starting. I've been feeling rather lazy lately, and it seems I never have much motivation to be productive during the summer, even if "being productive" just means reading through a book, or writing consistently.

I'm also struggling with my own natural tendency toward messiness; neither Jordan nor I enjoy living in a cluttered home, but neither of us enjoy doing chores, either. I guess not many people enjoy chores, but that's beside the point. Right now my cleaning routine goes something like this: let the mess pile up (literally; who knew we had so many clothes?) until it's completely overwhelming, and then try to attack it all in one fell swoop, usually over the course of several hours. That system is kind of exhausting, and I'm tired of it. And it's not just my own annoyance that's getting me down; I don't like leaving the house a mess when I go to work, knowing that Jordan will come home to it. It hardly makes me feel like a selfless spouse when I don't clean up because I'm lazy or I just don't like chores.

If you hadn't noticed, I'm in a bit of a lame mood right now. I wanted to go work out before I leave for work in a half hour, but I had to make some phone calls for school and by the time I was done there wasn't enough time left for it to be worthwhile. I'm trying to lost weight, another task that's proving to be difficult and one that I sometimes just want to forget about. The thing is, I've checked; my weight right now isn't unhealthy. But, I could lose five or ten pounds and still be in the healthy weight range, and I'd feel much better about myself. I try to eat well, but I have horrible self-control. I'll often indulge in some ice cream or a candy bar if I have a sweet craving, even if my only excuse is that I've had a bad day, or that I'm in a bad mood. Not a very healthy attitude to have, and certainly not helpful if I want to lose weight.

On a happier note, Jordan took me out last night for a surprise early birthday dinner. I had spent the entire day in the apartment, and when he got home from work I was just itching to get out and do something. He told me to get dressed up and that we'd go out to dinner. I was sort of in the mood for steak, and around 8:40 we left to go to the Rancher's Club, a steakhouse restaurant in the Hilton hotel downtown. I'd never been there before, and when we walked in I realized that it was one of the fanciest restaurant's I'd ever been in. The lighting was low, the music was soft and jazzy, there were deer and buffalo heads mounted on the walls, and all the waiters wore tuxedos. Once we were seated, and after our hostess laid our napkins in our laps for us, Jordan confessed that he had told them it was my birthday. It was such a sweet, romantic gesture, and our dinner was wonderful. Our waiter came by every ten minutes to check on us, he cut our steaks off the bone right at our table, and I got a complimentary slice of triple-layer chocolate mousse cake for dessert.

In spite of my poor moods lately, my wanting to lose weight, my anxieties about school, I am very blessed to have such a wonderful husband. Jordan's been thinking about going back to school, and we talked at dinner about various paths for our future. It's daunting, and difficult at times, but I am comforted by the fact that the Lord has gifted me with Jordan as my life-mate, my helper, and that we will always be together no matter what, no matter where we move or go to school, no matter what kinds of jobs we get, as long as the Lord shall will.

Youtube

Ah, Youtube. The Internet peruser's number one stop for wise, insightful comments regarding the random video uploads of our day.

Take this sage, for example, on Mischa Maisky's rendition of Bach's Cello Suite No. 6 i-Prelude:

"how can you possibly insult either yoyo ma, rostropovich or mischa. I get that some people prefer one's version more but how can you deny the fucking awesomeness of 3 awesome different versions of the most epic shit ever"

Well, torment7777, I, for one, am not denying the fucking awesomeness. You've won me over; clearly, you are the intellectual superior.

Short Term Goals

Most days at work are pretty slow. Sometimes hours will go by with only two, three, or maybe no customers coming in. I've been brining Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" with me to read in the slow hours (and to try and fulfill my goal of actually finishing it, an endeavor I began last December), but today I'm pretty tired and don't feel like I have the mental energy to process that kind of work.

Earlier, as I was sitting at the computer, clicking mindlessly through xkcd comics, checking the clock every four minutes, my mind wandered to a posting on Facebook I saw the other day. My friend had posted a bunch of photos he had taken on a Walgreens disposable camera; most of them turned out pretty cool, and I find the slightly fuzzy, colors slightly off, scanned-in effect endearing and possessing a new freshness in this age of digital photography. I began to think, wouldn't it be fun to do that myself? To carry around a dispoable point-and-shoot and take photos of interesting things throughout my day? What if I turned it into a project? Every week would have a different theme of kinds of photos, for example.

Then I thought, hey, I have that really nice copy of National Geographic's Field Guide to Photography that Jordan's mom gave me a couple of years ago. I've flipped through it, but I've barely scratched the surface when it comes to technical understanding of digital SLRs. I can take a decent photo with my Nikon D40, but how often do I stray from auto, or the very basic knowledge I have of manipulating the manual settings? I realized that my Field Guide would be the perfect book to bring to work, to look through during slow times and increase my photography knowledge.

With all of these thoughts swimming around in my head, I came up with this idea: I want to be a better photographer, I have an awesome camera and an awesome photogrpahy guide; why not turn that into a project?

So here it is: Beginning next week and going through, December maybe? - ending with the fall semester seems doable, and gives me a solid timeline that I'm accustomed to - I'll pick a theme for the week (red things, trash, architecture, and darkness are among the ideas I've jotted down so far) and, using skills learned from my photography guide, I'll take at least one picture every day within that theme. I have to look at my guide again, but maybe I can divide it up by chapter or theme as well; f-stops, or shutter speed, or utilizing flash, etc.

I think this is doable. Short term goals are good for you, right? And this way, I'll have specific weekly goals to help me work through my guide and enhance my photography skills, instead of just flipping the pages aimlessly and taking ten photographs of my couch, or other random objects. It will (I hope) help me get to know my camera while training me to see interesting, beautiful, captivating things within my daily life.

I think I'll post weekly photos, just to make it even more fun! At least one a week, or more, if I happen to have multiple favorites. I'm excited!

I'm feeling pretty lame right now. The day has been pretty normal, nothing bad has happened. It's just one of those days where my thoughts start to snowball until I feel overwhelmed, and bummed.

My parents and little sister are moving to Idaho next week. My older sister is going back to California, and school will be starting soon. I'm not really looking forward to school starting. I hate the countdown of the final days of summer, knowing I only have so much time left with family and friends before everyone either moves away or becomes insanely busy.

I guess it's normal to just want to sit around and enjoy the summer days with my new husband, but I've been beginning to feel like I haven't been very productive since . . . well, since we got back from our honeymoon. Granted, settling into the new place is a process that still isn't finished, but there are so many little things I've been putting off, like mailing thank-you cards or setting up times to hang out with my friends who are among those leaving the state early next month.

It makes me wonder if I truly spend my time well, when every time a big change comes along, I'm always dwelling on what-ifs and wishes that there was more time to spend.

Work Thoughts

One thing that kind of bites about working retail is the late nights. When I worked at Hobby Lobby, a closing shift would usually be from 2:00 to 8:00. Six hours isn't an abnormally long shift, but it's a long time to be on your feet. At my new job, a gift shop, we don't close until 9:00, so if I'm on the closing shift I'm usually not driving home until close to 9:30.

All sorts of people come into the shop. Well, they're all tourists, or nearby merchants looking for a discounted soda, or, once in a while, someone looking to sell their products to the store. What I mean is, there are a lot of different types of customers:

The friendly, jovial type. They'll chat you up about the weather or what song is on the radio, and they usually buy something.

The opposite of those above: people who don't acknowledge you when you greet them, who may not even look you in the eye as they silently skulk around the shop. Maybe they'll buy something, but it won't be much.

Then there's the customer with a clear purpose. They know what they want, and they're not going to waste time browing. I had one man come in who, before I could even say "Hello", said to me, determinedly, "Pins that you put in baseball caps." He skipped the normal social graces of a greeting or a smile; he didn't even phrase his desire in the form of a question, that's how important it was. It was a simple, direct statement, and when we didn't have what he wanted, he left to seek elsewhere.

Some tourists are so, well, touristy. They don't want to spend money on anything that's not made in New Mexico. We carry small stone trinkets that are made in Peru; a little girl told her mother she liked them, but when mom noticed the "Made in Peru" sticker, she said, "Oh, put that back, we want something from here."

Of course, customers come in all shapes and sizes. Girls my age chatting about wedding plans and who seemed to pretend that I didn't exist once they got to the register. They wanted to talk to each other, buy their things, and leave, without making small talk, or much eye contact, with me. Excited kids, bored kids, kindly middle-aged couples, or angry parents, perhaps exhausted by walking in the heat. A mother asked her daughter to pick out a gift for someone; a friend or cousin, perhaps. The daughter responded in a murmur I couldn't hear, and the mother bent down and nearly shouted in her face, "I don't care!" I resolved on the spot to never shout in the faces of my children, unless it is truly for their benefit.

I'm working today for nine hours, and again tomorrow, which will make two Fridays in a row that I've closed. I'm hoping that Friday night closing shifts won't be a consistent trend.

Flash Fiction Experiment

The man does not say anything.

The woman gets up off of the sofa, walks into the kitchen, pours herself a glass of water, and drinks it silently in the dim bluish light of the television screen. The man looks at his hands. The woman sighs and turns to put her empty glass in the sink.

"You want anything, then?"

"Nope."

The woman walks into the bedroom and quietly closes the door. The man walks to the bookshelf, picks up a book, considers it for a moment, replaces it, and returns to the sofa. In the dim bluish light of the television screen, he reaches for a half-empty can of soda that sits on the coffee table and finishes it in two or three gulps.

***

Not really sure what this is. I've been wanting to write some "flash fiction" ever since I was exposed to Amelia Gray's "AM/PM" a few months ago. I've also been wanting to see if and how characters develop when writing takes on a distant and observational tone, relaying actions and words without adding any kind of meaning to them that an omniscient narrator or first-person perspective allows. I kind of like this minimalistic form. We'll see what comes of it.