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.

Career Choices

We all know how it goes.

There you are, standing at a crossroads, facing a choice: the non-practical one that you love, or the practical one that you can make money with?

I feel like I should say here that this is not necessary a right vs. wrong, or good vs. bad decision. Maybe I'm saying that mostly for myself, because it usually takes me so long just to sort out what I really want that it's sometimes hard for me to sacrifice even little things that I care about for the sake of the more practical path.

Here's an example. My first year and a half of college was spent in often gut-wrenching indecision. I didn't know what to major in, and I felt that the rest of my life and happiness rested on that one decision. Not to mention the fact that it made registering for classes a very stressful experience. So I took an acting class, and I took some music classes, and I knocked out a couple of gen-eds, but by the end of my first year I still felt like I had gone nowhere. Of course, that's not entirely true; I've learned that growth happens whether you realize it or not, but the question still remained, what was I going to do?

Third semester my interest in writing and radio really caught on fire. It started as a paper project, where for paper credit I produced and edited a short podcast about my experience being in a play. It was a blast, and I was very proud of the result, even though it's all quite amateur. I started thinking about journalism, and how much I love radio shows like This American Life, and I learned about a field of study and literature that I had never even heard of before: Literary Non-Fiction, or Creative Non-Fiction.

"Any or all forms of the essay may be enlivened and made more meaningful through attention to imagery, voice, character, setting and scene - the elements of imaginative writing. Such essays may be called literary non-fiction or creative non-fiction, terms to describe the kinds of essays that include the personal but don't necessarily stay there, that include the factual but search for the greater range and resonance."

That's from my great writing book, which I recommend to anybody interested in being a better and more thoughtful writer (or reader, or person in general); it's called "Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft" by Janet Burroway. I used the 2nd edition, even though it's not the most recent, mostly because that's the one my creative writing instructor made us buy.

I love creative non-fiction because it's informative, and it has credence because it's about real people and real events (like the news), but it's not boring (in that way, unlike the news). I think Janet Burroway says it well, as she always does:

"In a first-person essay . . . you would have 'distance' [on your topic], a perspective that embraces not just the immediate event but its place in a human, social, historical, even cosmic context. Because creative non-fiction has this deeper (or wider, or more universal, or significant) subject, it won't necessarily date in the manner of yesterday's newspaper."

Okay, enough examples of why I love creative non-fiction. The point is, last fall I finally had somewhat of a grasp on what I wanted to do. I wanted to write! I wanted to learn how to be an imaginative, creative non-fiction writer, and I wanted to (maybe) work in radio someday, maybe for a show like This American Life, brining thoughtful, insightful, funny, real stories to my audience. And I decided to choose my major: English, with an emphasis in creative writing.

And now, I'm considering changing it. Probably not drastically, but I may switch to the more practical technical/professional writing emphasis, and take creative writing classes as electives.

When I first started thinking about this, it upset me. Finally, I had found something in college that I wanted to study, and now I was facing the possibility of letting that go. But the more I thought about it and looked into it, the more reasonable it started to seem. The classes sound interesting, and practicality can't be ignored entirely. Jordan and I are on a tight budget right now, and when he goes to grad school I'll be the one working more and making most of the money (which is what he's doing now while I finish my undergrad). We want to have children someday, and those children are going to need a good home, good schools, and college funds. Maybe that's looking too far ahead; maybe not. There is a future that we want, and there are certain pragmatic steps to be taken in order to prepare for it.

It's a constant struggle, it seems, the practical vs. the . . . I'm not really sure what to call it. Non-practical? Purely enjoyable? Hobby-ish? I believe there is value to things like music and art and creative writing, and I know other people do, too; if not, those kinds of things wouldn't be out there, it wouldn't even be an option. But as my World Literature professor once said, we may say we value certain things very highly, but our actions say otherwise (i.e. who doesn't value education? Yet how much do we pay teachers for their efforts?)

We'll see how it all turns out. Another thing I'm learning is that a lot of things turn out differently than you expect, or even plan, them to. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Yesterday was the busiest day I've/we've had in a while.

We got up, had some breakfast, and then I went through all of our cards from the wedding and organized the money, checks and gift cards people had sent to us. And then, it was errand time.

First we went to get me new tires for my car. Somehow my old tires had been messed up by tar; not sure if it's just because I've had them for three years, or if I accidentally drove on the not-yet-dry pavement when they were re-paving the apartment complex. It wasn't my fault - they usually had it blocked off by cones or caution tape, but for some reason it had been taken down, or maybe knocked down by another carless driver.

Next we stopped by my old work, Hobby Lobby, and I got a W2 request form. Apparently I never got one, or it never got logged, last year, and I need one for taxes and records.

Then we went to Target. We returned a few duplicates from our registry (still don't know how that happened; that's what a registry's for, right?) and then picked up a few things we need: a mixer, some wine glasses to replace a gift that got broken (also not our fault - Jordan was hand-washing a glass and suddenly it cracked down the side.), and some proper bedding. That last part turned into a bit of a trial. We browsed around the bedding aisles, and I had to call my mom to discern exactly what a "coverlet" is. We got one that we thought we liked, and then when I noticed it was part polyester I got worried that it would be too hot. Jordan found some basic cotton blankets, but they didn't have a very good color selection. We were both getting frustrated, so I took the one we had originally picked out and we headed for the register. Then the woman at the register tells us that "coverlets" are mainly decorative, but I told Jordan to get them anyway because I thought it would be OK.

We headed back to Hobby Lobby to get a specific kind of storage jar Jordan has been wanting to keep his pipe tobacco in, and on the way we talked it over and decided that the "coverlet" wasn't really what we wanted. So, after Hobby Lobby, we went back to Target and found my sister-in-law Nicole, whom we had seen going in as we were leaving. Nicole saved the day; she helped us pick out a nice quilt and gave us great suggestions on color, decorating, and type of pillowcase (go for the cheaper ones, like a jersey, unless you're really concerned about thread count). We left Target a second time feeling much, much better.

On the way home we stopped at the grocery store, and when we got home there was just enough time to put away everything and then Jordan had to run to work. Half an hour after he left, I left for UNM to go to a meeting for an all student-run radio program called Lobo Growl that's getting started. Jon told me about it last week, I emailed the guy in charge, and this was the second official meeting for the program.

There weren't that many people there, and I was the only girl; the student whose putting it all together is actually a PhD student, I think I was one of four undergrads, and then there was one law student/writing instructor as well as one of the managers from the local public radio station, whom we're partnering with to get this off the ground.

I am really excited about this program. I emailed KUNM, the local public radio station, earlier this week to ask about volunteering and internship opportunities, but Lobo Growl seems like exactly what I've been looking for. I may want to do some training with KUNM on the side, if that's possible, while everything's still getting started, but through this program it looks like I'll get experience not only in administrative duties, but also in the technical aspects of radio production and developing an artistic aesthetic. One of our first projects is to answer questions like, what will Lobo Growl offer that no other radio station does? Do we have a particular "sound"? What will our logo look like? What kind of music will we play, and what will our sources of content be?

We have a week to brainstorm, and we're meeting again a week from today.

After that, I went back home to start dinner. Jordan's friend and best man Trevor came over, and we had spaghetti and key lime pie and watched SNL's "The Best of Will Ferrell."

It was a very full day, and very rewarding. As I was reflecting on the day yesterday evening, I thought about how much I cherish these times with Jordan, early in our marriage, when we have entire days to spend together, even if it's just running errands. Doing things with him, my husband, makes menial things into meaningful things, and I am thankful for these special times.

I'm so tired of boxes and bags!

Last night, Jordan and I made another trip over to my parents' house to get some more of my stuff. I think this time I really do have almost all of it, at least the things that were in my room. The place is looking pretty good, but we really can't start decorating and playing designer much until I get the rest of my things put away. At this point, it's mostly clothes, which isn't too bad. I've got a big box of old mail and bank statements and papers from high school that I'm not sure what to do with.

Our two beautiful bookshelves (courtesy of our priest, Father Paul and family) are looking pleasantly full of books, although a couple of the shelves need some slight repair.

Later today I have a promising job interview lined up. I'm beginning to get a little stir crazy just hanging around the apartment all day, plus we'd like to have more money. Wish me luck!

Operation Move-In has commenced!

Well, we're already sort of moved in. And by that I mean, we're living in our new place, but a lot of my stuff is still awaiting either organization or storage at my parents' house, and our living room is still full of half-empty boxes of gifts that we haven't known what to do with yet. Today, Jordan and I stopped by Lowe's and got some dry wall anchors so we can start hanging stuff up and making this place look a little more put-together. Right now, he and his brother have gone to his grandparents' house to get a drill, which we didn't think we'd need since the anchors are labeled "self-drilling", but apparently we do.

I really like our little apartment. It's just the right size, we have a nice view off of our porch, and there's even a fireplace, something rare to find in a downstairs apartment. At first we were really excited about that fireplace, but it's actually turned into a bit of a hassle. Because of where the TV and router plug in, it's most convenient to have the TV in a particular spot - on the opposite side of the room as the fireplace - which basically means that we can either arrange the furniture to highlight the television, or the fireplace. Jordan's parents very generously gave us a couch and matching love seat because they bought new furniture not too long ago, but we haven't yet found a way to arrange them so that the TV and fireplace can be equally enjoyed. Right now, the love seat is blocking the fireplace, which actually kind of works for the room. At the half-joking suggestion of my eldest brother, we may change things around a couple of times a year and have a winter and summer arrangement; in the summer, the fireplace will just stay out of view, and in the winter we'll move things so that we can enjoy its warmth.

In other news, I've resolved to compile a summer reading list to stave off the summer-brain-melt syndrome. I hope I can stick to it this time; it seems every summer vacation I decide I'm going to get so much reading done with my extra free time, but it never happens. The temptation of complete laziness is overwhelming sometimes, but with planning the wedding this last semester, I couldn't focus on school as much as I normally do, and I miss mental activity. I've asked Jordan to suggest some good philosophy reads, and I want to re-read some of my books. So far on the list are Athanasius' "On the Incarnation", maybe Gregory of Nazianzus (all of those heretic-fighters), and a book about the Orthodox church of which I can't remember the name. I'm playing with the idea of going through "The Lord of the Rings" again, but I'm not sure if I'm up to it just yet.

Things I'm Thankful For

Those memories that make you ache somewhere between your heart and your stomach, because they make you happy and sad at the same time. Those long talks that start out unplanned, and span the emotional arc from crying to laughing to calm contentment. Those friends who are worth missing. Those friends who you take for granted because they're too close to miss. Those friends who can be gone for months at a time, and then join you for lunch as if they never left. Those friends who've seen you at your worst, and still want to help you be your best. Those late nights that breed fellowship and choose to forget early mornings. A life that's worth reminiscing about. A life that's worth looking forward to.

Into thy hands, O Lord, we commend the soul of they servant, James Burroughs (Papa), and beseech thee to grant him rest in the place of thy rest, where all thy blessed Saints repose, and where the light of thy countenance shineth forever. And we beseech thee also to grant our present lives may be godly, sober and blameless, that we too may be made worthy to enter into thy heavenly Kingdom with those we love but see no longer: for thou art the Resurrection, and the Life, and the Repose of thy departed servants, O Christ our God, and unto thee we ascribe glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

***

I've been journaling, but I don't have time to post a lot right now. More, when we come home.

I hate not writing for so long, so here I am. I'm in Zimmerman Library (the main library at the University of New Mexico), and I have a stack of six books about Oscar Wilde on the desk waiting for me. In the next couple of hours I'll be - I hope - finishing up a paper for my English Lit class that's due tomorrow.

I'm writing about the significance of fractured identities in Wilde's famous "The Importance of Being Earnest." If it turns out to be any good, maybe I'll even post part of it. Lately I've found myself wanting to "publish" bits of my schoolwork that I'm particularly proud of.

I thought about writing on Stevenson's "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" for this topic, but I chose the play because I've never thought of it as anything more than a ridiculous, witty comedy. But, thanks to my English Lit class, I see it in a new light: a biting commentary on Victorian society and ideals, a practical mockery of traditional forms of theatre and character, as well as traditional ideas about romance. Well, I'm not sure about that last part. In my paper, I'm more arguing that Wilde is not saying that love and marriage in Victorian society is shallow and foolish; my thesis is, roughly, that Wilde respects love, marriage and commitment, but the strict standards of Victorian society stifle and hinder his character's achievement of them.

We'll see how it turns out.

In terms of publishable work, I got a pleasant surprise in the form of my graded short fiction story that I turned in for my creative writing class. My professor LOVED it; I got a 100%, and I'm not even sure if it's entirely possible for anyone to get a 100% on a paper, especially a piece of creative writing, but it's nonetheless flattering. Aside from some minor suggestions of paragraph placement, sentence editing and perhaps one or two paragraphs added in to expand on some ideas, my professor thought it was great. He told me I should submit it to be published when I'm done revising it, and that he can help me do so.

The shocking thing about all of this is that I felt like my short story was crap. Well, not complete crap, but I certainly wasn't intensely proud of it. It was really challenging to write; I feel that poetry comes much more naturally to me. But that's the funny thing I'm learning about being an artist, of any form; you never know how your work is going to be received, which is a good and a bad thing. I may hate a piece, but my professor turns around and adores it. On the flip side, though, that leaves the possibility for me to love a work of mine, and others to think it's not that great.

It's so tricky with writing. There's definitely a line between good writing and bad writing; if something's bad, you know it's bad. But on each side of that line, there's a very large gray area in which it's hard to say, especially, I find, when I'm critiquing my own writing.

And, of course, what constitutes "good" writing has changed throughout the centuries, as well as with different cultures. For example, when the Enlightenment swept through Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, good writing was concise, rational, an adequate representation of life and society and, above all, a criticism of the foolish. Think Alexander Pope, Moliere, and, of course, Descartes, who famously split the mind from the body.

Then along come Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the rest of the Romantics, and they turn the focus to the emotions, to nature, to spirituality, and that's the stuff that makes good writing.

So the fact that my creative writing professor loved my short story is both encouraging and discouraging. Well, it gives me pause, at least. Maybe it's just because I'm new at this, and I'm still developing myself as a writer, but I'm not sure what to make of the fact that art is so subjective in one sense, and yet in another sense it's entirely objective. Like I said, there is good art, and there is bad; it's trying to find the distinction that's the challenge.

There's so much I want to write about. My grandfather; my trip to Biola; marriage; writing. But I just don't have the time.

I have another ninety-four pages of "Mrs. Dalloway" to read, a five-page short story to revise, and revise, and try to twist into something halfway okay, and a five to seven page English paper that I haven't started, due in six days.

We've hit that point. That part in the semester where nobody really has a lot of energy anymore, nobody really cares that much about school anymore, and every assignment seems like just a little more than we can handle on any kind of normal sleep schedule.

By this time next week, I'll have time to write and blog and think about life again. But right now, I have no choice but to compartmentalize. I can't think about flowers for the wedding; I just have to get this work done.

The Challenge

So often when I write, especially on my blogs, everything is "me, me, me". It's kind of hard for it not to be that way. Earlier I was writing in my creative writing journal, and I noticed how many times I use the word "I" or "me"; "I thought," "I said," "as I was doing this," etc., etc. Man, if I was someone else reading my journal, I'd probably get bored. After all, my day-to-day life isn't that fascinating.

For this challenge, I'm going to write exclusively in the third person for one week. This challenge applies to my blog only (though obviously not to this entry), excluding "Wedding Thoughts" (how would that work?).

I'm just tired of only thinking in one way, of only looking at the world and other people through my narrow lens. We'll see what happens.

The Saints of April

Today's featured poem on "The Writer's Almanac."

I think it's beautiful.

The Saints of April

by Todd Davis

Coltsfoot gives way to dandelion,
plum to apple blossom. Cherry fills
our woods, white petals melting
like the last late snow. Dogwood's
stigmata shine with the blood
of this season. How holy
forsythia and redbud are
as they consume their own
flowers, green leaves running
down their crowns. Here is
the shapeliness of bodies
newly formed, the rich cloth
that covers frail bones and hides
roots that hold fervently
to this dark earth.

Diabetes Repair, I guess

Well, it finally happened.

As I'm sitting at my desk last night, getting ready to settle into working on a World Lit paper that's due tomorrow, I look down at my Macbook and notice a half-circle crack one on corner of it's white surface. The crack branches out and snakes its way almost all the way across the bottom of edge of my laptop, leaving a loose piece on one end that I can wobble easily.

I say "finally" because I have on a number of occasions dropped my backpack while my laptop was inside, or it's slid off of the seat and landed on the floor of my car with a thud while I was driving. Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to go to my first class, I slung my backpack off of my shoulder and intended to set it gently on the tile floor. It slid out of my hand half-way there, though, and hit the floor, making me wince because I knew my laptop was inside. That impact must have done it, because I hadn't noticed these cracks before last night.

My mom isn't sure if my laptop is still covered under warranty. The only thing to do is take it into the Apple Store and see what can be done.

Sorry, little Mac.

So, you know how I said I didn't think it was a good idea to change the focus of my non-fiction essay the day before it's due?

Well.

I did. I sat in the coffee shop across the street from campus for over two hours, just writing. I knew when I walked in the door that I wasn't happy with my rough draft, and I knew I had to change it. Ten pages later, it still needs some polishing, but I'm much more satisfied with the general product. Let's hope my professor thinks the same.

Speaking of writing - my English lit professor just sent out an email announcing the topics for our next paper. Our last paper was due before spring break, and with this essay due tomorrow and another course paper for my World lit class due on Friday, I'm definitely getting burnt out with writing and staring at computer screens. I guess that's what I signed up for when I chose an English major, but in my first year and a half of college I never wrote more than one paper per semester.

I need another spring break. But someone said the other day that there's only seven weeks left in the term (which is crazy), so maybe there's hope.

I feel really lame for not settling in to do homework until now. Once the sun goes down, I have less motivation to do work, and I the pressure to get it done within a reasonable amount of time is higher. But today is Monday, and on Mondays, I have class from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM. Not back-to-back, but four classes with less than an hour break between any of them. It's exhausting, so by the time I get home a little after 6:00, I can't bring myself to do homework until I crash for a while.

Today, I turned in the rough draft of my creative non-fiction essay for my creative writing class. I really didn't feel very confident about it. I started out with one idea, and by the time I finished the draft last night I had totally changed directions. In hindsight, I'm not sure if it was the best idea. But the final draft is due Wednesday, and I don't have the energy to start from scratch, or to completely re-do the work I've done so far; also, I think it's just good practice to get in the habit of following through with my writing projects, even if I don't end up liking them very much.

I was up until 2:00 this morning finishing it. I called Jordan right before I went to sleep, because he was still up writing a paper, too.

"Jordan," I said, "I'm already getting burnt out from writing. I feel like this shouldn't be this hard, and it makes me feel like a bad writer."

"That's just because you don't have a lot of practice at it yet." Jordan often jokes that I lack an "inner logician", that voice inside my head that supplies me with logic and common sense. So, I've decided that Jordan is my logician. And I knew he was right. But I jokingly replied,

"I give up. I'm going to switch my major to art." Of course, I'm already so behind on my major as it is that switching is not an option. I'm going to be in school forever!

Man. Writing is hard.

For the past few hours I've been working on a creative non-fiction essay for my creative writing class. It needs to be seven to ten pages long, a rough draft is due Monday, and the final draft is due Wednesday.

Currently, I'm writing about my experiences in theatre, and what I've come to see as my coming of age as an actor in last semester's "The Dining Room." I hope that doesn't sound too melodramatic, but I really feel like last semester was extremely formative for me, and "The Dining Room" was definitely a part of that. I've been wanting to write about it more extensively; I wrote a reflection about the play last semester, which I turned into my first podcast, and I've been wanting to revisit the subject.

I've got four pages written, but I still don't feel like I've really started telling the story I want to tell.

I'm learning this semester that I don't have the best time management skills. It's strange; in a way, I almost don't feel like I'm really in school. I know it has to do with living at home and going to school in state, versus than going to Biola and living at school.

When I was at Biola, my life felt very divided. When I was at school, I was all there - eating in my school cafeteria, studying in my school library, hanging out with my school friends, sleeping in my school bed at night. Most of my time and energy was devoted to the Biola world, and in some ways, New Mexico felt very far away.

And then I would come home.

Home was the place I'd be for holidays, home meant seeing family and friends I hadn't seen (and maybe even hadn't talked to) for months. Home meant big meals, rushing around trying to make time for everyone, sleeping in a bed in a room that was "mine", but that had remained frozen exactly as I had left it the last time I was there. I'd more or less live out of a suitcase, not even entirely unpacking over the long Christmas break (although that was usually due more to my laziness than anything else). Home also meant isolated hours of stressful studying, as I had to keep up with my Torrey reading even on breaks. My first Thanksgiving home I spent several hours in my room, reading and taking notes on Leviticus and Deuteronomy, only able to freely relax after I had checked everything off my list: themes, questions and answers, outline.

So even on vacations, a good portion of my mental energy was dedicated to my Biola life.

But now, things are different. Home is not an island escape in the sea of homework and commitments and paper deadlines. It's still a place I can relax and see my family, but I no longer feel justified to spend the majority of my time at home doing so, because every morning I wake up and I have to go back to school. I still have to confine myself to my room and tell my sister that I can't watch TV with her, because if I don't, then I'll fall behind.

In a way, now that I'm living at home, I almost feel worse about not spending time with my family than I did when I was at Biola. Since I'm living in the same city as most of them, I feel more guilty about not seeing them, whereas at Biola, email, phone calls and Skype were the best I could offer.

Which brings me back to my first thought. Now that my school world and my home world have collided, I need to step it up on the time management front. Granted, I had a lot to juggle at Biola: a demanding honors curriculum, all my other classes and homework, friends, church, a long-distance relationship, and, last semester, a play with three hour rehearsals (at least) four nights a week (at least). This semester, I've got school, church, spending time with family, being with Jordan and wedding planning and everything that comes with that (pre-marital counseling, meetings with vendors, entire afternoons devoted to addressing envelopes).

Maybe what I'm actually learning here is that no matter what's going on in my life or where I am, things are always going to be very, very busy. Freshman year I had professors tell me more than once that as you grow older, you don't have more time. You have less. One of my Torrey professors put it this way: you will never have more disposable time than you do as a college student. Hard to believe sometimes, isn't it? I mean, college demands a lot! But I'm beginning to understand what they were getting at. Sure, college is busy, but when you get into marriage, and jobs, and added family responsibilities, not to mention having a family of your own someday, college starts to seem more and more manageable.

Nonetheless, I'm also learning that if I want to get sufficient sleep, and if I want to start being punctual instead of chronically late, I can't afford to come home, spend an hour watching television, and then spend another hour fiddling around on Facebook. I never watched TV at Biola, mostly because I didn't have one, and trying to watch something on a dorm TV just wasn't convenient.

Time management is an invaluable skill, and one that you learn as you go, it seems. It's just another part of growing up and becoming a responsible adult. I'm responsible for my work, I'm responsible for my time, and that includes time wasted.

Deathly Hallows trailer has been leaked!

http://www.worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=16023

I am very, very excited for these movies! I really need to reread the book, though. All I can remember is that they spend a long time camping out in the woods, a lot of people die, and I think I pretty much remember the last two or three chapters (I'll refrain from details in case anyone - inconceivable as it may be - hasn't yet read the last book).

Unrelated note: I've started a third blog, about the wedding/marriage-planning process. Check it out, I need some followers!

(Added 24 March) - I guess that Deathly Hallows trailer has been available for a long time. I didn't take the time to read what that website has to say or to check dates, but it seems that the trailer is included when you buy the Half-Blood Prince DVD. Oh well. I only saw it for the first time a couple of days ago. And it gives me goosebumps.

Note to self: tofu, fried in olive oil with assorted spices, salt, and bread crumbs = pretty good. The bread crumbs are a little, well, crumby, but the extra flavor compensates for the extra mess.

I'm taking a study break from working on my first real paper of the semester, an English lit essay about marriage in Jane Austen's "Emma". It's only five to seven pages, and I need to use about three external sources, so my paper seems to be filling up rather nicely. I don't have a completed rough draft yet, though, and I need time to edit tonight before turning it in tomorrow. But I have hopes that it will all come together in the end.

For dinner I am enjoying the tofu (described above), as well as my equally doctored-up butternut squash soup from Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's has great food, but this soup is a little bland. I remedied it by chopping up two red-skin potatoes, part of an onion that Hannah didn't use for her guacamole the other day, sweet corn and garbanzo beans. It's so good now, I actually crave it throughout the day.

Add some flatbread with hummus and a cool glass of OJ, and this is a meal that can see me through the end of this paper.

As if Mondays aren't bad enough already, my Mondays are always the longest, most tiring days of my week. I have four classes on Mondays - and in earlier semesters I've never had more than two classes in one day. World Lit, break. English lit, break. Creative Writing, break. Honors class. And today, I and another girl in my honors class are co-leading, which I'm a little nervous about but not nervous enough to really do anything else beforehand (although I may look over the readings again and jot down a few back-up discussion questions, just in case). My partner has never seemed too worried about the whole thing, so I'm following her lead.

I feel like I'm just doing work all day on Mondays. Most of the time I use my breaks in between classes to catch up on some reading I didn't finish, or edit whatever is due in Creative Writing that day. It takes about ten minutes to get from class to class because the campus is so huge, so a big chunk of my time is spent just commuting. At the end of the day, I'm mentally and physically exhausted.

On a sort-of related note, I'm going to post one of the exercises I did for Creative Writing today. We're focusing on setting, so the instructions for this particular exercise were to take a typical scene from your childhood and write about it using the long-shot, middle-shot, close-up method. If you're unfamiliar, it's basically a technique in which you begin describing your scene in a broad sense ("it was summer of 1995"), zoom in a little to the middle shot range ("the street in front of our midwestern house was deserted as usual") and then end on a tightly focused image ("I squirmed in my chair at the lemonade stand, shifting my legs every few minutes to unstick them from the hot plastic"). I don't know if those are the best examples (since I just made them up on the spot), but hopefully you get the picture.

Here's my piece. Honestly, it's probably my favorite bit of writing that I've done for this class so far.

The campus baked in the mid-afternoon sun, empty playground equipment and the metal sheeting of low-cost portables wobbling in the heat waves. There’s no bell, just a clock in every room watched by the teachers, and watched more closely by the students. At three o’clock it’s finally time, and we dart out of the low-ceilined classrooms, sneakers shuffling over the blue carpet and out onto the asphalt and dirt. Some parents are already idling in the pick-up line, and their corresponding students separate from the sticky herd, beckoned by air-conditioned vehicles. The rest of us make our way around to the backside of one of the buildings near the parking lot, a designated space of ground separated from the cars by a chain-link fence. I drop my purple backpack in the shade of the building, myself following. I wait, playing tic-tac-toe against no one, digging moats and constructing cities for ants until my mother’s minivan joins the cue of cars, kicking up dust, gravel crunching beneath the tires.

I've lately developed an interesting, and probably strange, habit. When I'm going about my day, in my various tasks and activities, I've noticed that my thoughts have become more of a formulated "inner monologue". I start to think as if I'm writing in past tense about what's going on in the moment. For example, yesterday I was going to take a shower and I couldn't find my normal body wash. After looking through the drawers and cabinets in my bathroom and deciding that my little sister must have stolen it for the road trip to Idaho she and my parents took this weekend, I broadened my search to include my parents' bathroom.

As I rummaged around, I became oddly self-aware of my own thoughts. I suppose that during a task such as wandering around your house in your bathrobe looking for body wash, most people will lend themselves toward thinking about something else, something totally unrelated. After all, how thought-consuming can looking for body wash be?

Instead, my thoughts went something like this: I opened drawer after drawer, checked under both sinks, looking behind bottles of rubbing alcohol and cologne for body wash, or at least an unopened package of hotel soap.

The cause for this, I think, is my ever-increasing interest in being a writer. Because of this, and also thanks to my creative writing class, I have become more observant, more aware of my surroundings, and even of my own thoughts. I'm always thinking about to turn something into an interesting narrative. I'm always asking myself the question, how would I write about this if I wanted to post it in my blog, or include it in a creative writing project?

Maybe I should make myself a woven bracelet, embroidered with the acronym W.W.I.G.D - What would Ira Glass do?

Or maybe that sounds a little too crazy-obsessive.

Coffee, music, and artsy thoughts

I feel a little sick to my stomach, as well as a little jittery. It's like I can't sit still; I'm tired, but I don't feel like I can rest. It's probably the coffee I had earlier. Maybe I need to eat something, or drink some water.

One of my new favorite stations on Pandora is my "Philip Glass" Radio, especially as background music for doing homework. Last semester at Biola, Paul Barnes, a musician/composer and monasticism advocate, came and did a lecture about minimalist music and monasticism. I have the notes from it somewhere, but at the moment I can't remember much of what he said. I do remember being incredibly impressed by his preview performances of some pieces he'd be playing at a concert later that night, which I couldn't go to because I had to read Dante's "Purgatory" for class, and I was visiting my sister Rebekah in L.A. He had some really cool stuff to say about minimalism; I'll try to dig up my notes and post some more about it later.

Anyway, it's Paul Barnes' lecture that introduced me to Philip Glass, because Barnes and Glass have been collaborating on some huge composition project for something like eleven years now. If you're a fan of excellent piano/orchestra music, and if you get tired of the typical classics like I do, check it out on Pandora. I get tired of the normal, and sometimes I need something a little more abstract to keep me refreshed and interested.

I haven't sat down to play the piano in a long time, which is sad because I have a piano all to myself here at my parents' house. When I'm not taking lessons, it's so hard to keep in practice. But Philip Glass' music makes me want to drop what I'm doing and go play piano. And to me, that's a mark of good music - that is, music that makes you want to hear/play/create music.

The same goes for any kind of art form, really. I think that art - be it music, literature, studio, theatre - should inspire the study and creation of more art. And it seems like it always does, because the thing about art is that there's never just one way to do or interpret something, so people are always coming up with something new and different.

It can be frustrating; I think we've all had times where we throw our hands up and say, "It's so subjective! What the hell is art, anyway?" That's a real aspect of it. But what I love about the subjectivity of art is that it means the conversation will never end, the creation will never cease. Artistic expression will never be exhausted. Humanity will never come to a point where we say, "That's it. We've seen and learned and said everything there is to say, and we have expressed it in every way that we can. We have completed our endeavors in art."

I'm thinking of starting a separate blog to self-publish some of my more academic/creative writing. I'm taking a creative writing course this semester, and we just finished up our poetry section and are about to start with creative non-fiction, which I am VERY excited about because that's the kind of writing I want to do, primarily.

The idea came to me while walking home (well, to Jordan's house) in the freezing cold today. It seems beneficial to have a separate forum for my more polished work.

Dear Miss Anthropologie

I will never be like you.

You, in your slouchy sweaters and clacking vintage heels and enormous, waist-sinching belts.

You, with your chunky jewelry and stylish knits. With your golden gladiator heels, and opaque black stockings.

Please don't mistake me - this is no insult. I admire your sense of fashion, and the obvious time and effort you put into your wardrobe. I wish I could be similarly well-dressed, and with such variety, every day! Unfortunately, I'm usually rushing to finish work I've procrastinated, or to find something clean to wear, or simply choosing to devote a few extra minutes to my sleep rather than to my appearance.

Sometimes, I wish I were like you, Miss Urban Outfitters from Later English Lit class. Or are you Miss Anthropologie? It doesn't make much of a difference, granted, but I thought I saw you there last week, so maybe it's more accurate.

But yes, sometimes I do wish it - undoubtedly my closet is bleak and outdated compared to yours, a fact I can admit without shame or hesitancy. I wear clothes I find, I borrow clothes from my more stylish sisters, but on the whole, I'm afraid I'm not entirely fashion-forward. And I possess a conviction, deep within me, that I may never be entirely so. I may have good pieces or a few nice outfits, but for now, at least, who has the time, or the money?

Well, you do, of course, Miss Anthropologie. You are Emily Blunt's Emily to my Anne Hathoway's Andrea (from the first half of the movie, at least). And for that, I admire you from afar; which the best I can presently do.

Even in Very Little

Why are the things that are best for you always the hardest things to do?

I think I can predict fairly accurately that I'm going to get a B in my gen. ed. astronomy class this semester. And I'm fine with that. B's are frustrating because they're the mediocre grade. You didn't do bad enough to get a C, but you didn't try hard enough to get an A.

Maybe it's a vice, or a blessing, or both, but I have a tiny voice in the back of my head that's always urging me to do more, to do better. Like for this astronomy class, I know I'd get more out of it if I did all of the reading all the time, or if I simply checked often enough so my online homework assignments weren't late, but I've had a lot of trouble disciplining myself this semester.

It's a delicate balance. I used to slave over my Torrey work for hours and hours, until it got to the point in my Freshman spring semester where my mentor asked me, "When was the last time you did something for fun?" and, after an introspective pause, I admitted (somewhat surprising myself), "I don't remember."

From experience I know, it's definitely possible to over work. And often times, it's easy to feel like there are more important things in life than homework, especially homework for a gen. ed. astronomy class. But if I think that way too much, I slip into laziness, because on some level I know that how I do in my gen. ed. astronomy class is just as important as how I do in any class for my major. Integrity and discipline are cultivated, or not cultivated, in many ways and situations. In Luke 16, Jesus says to his disciples,

"One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?" (v. 10-11)

It's strange to think that even in my boring gen. ed. astronomy class, I have an opportunity to be sanctified, and to glorify God in my work and interactions with others. Of course, I know that there really are things more important than gen. ed. astronomy class, and that one must be aware of where to draw the line. I suppose that's where wisdom comes in.

A Poem

In my introductory creative writing course, we've been spending these first few weeks focusing on poetry - reading and writing lots of poetry. This is one of the more recent ones of mine: a political poem. Before I go into too much explanation, I'll let you read it:

"Shadows"

A woman who wore a checkered shirt now has checkered skin,

branded by the heat.

Corpses unclaimed, unidentifiable; faces burned, clothes burned, skin burned black.

A mountain of hollow skulls, the remains of those killed, too numerous to bury properly.

Everything is burned. The ground, the rubble, the sky - all black with ash and smoke,

as if nothing will ever look the same again,

as if nothing will ever be bright and alive again.

Everything is melted, leveled, piled up in smoking heaps of debris and body parts.

That corpse was a person once.

Did they love someone? Did they have children?

They are burned for the crimes of those with more power, more threat, like an offering.

A sacrifice.

Closest to the blast, there are no remains at all.

But on a bridge, there are two discolored patches.

Shadows.

Shadows of people who were standing right there, and now . . .

only shadows. Their ghosts, eternally embedded in the concrete.

Maybe they were the lucky ones. Maybe they didn't feel it.

At least there is a record that they were there.

That they existed.

That there was a time when they were real, and alive.

No one knows their names, or what their voices sounded like.

But there is proof.

They were right there.

I originally wanted this to be a prose poem, but Jordan pointed out to me that prose poems aren't supposed to have line breaks, so I'm not really sure what it is. I tried to use the line breaks for dramatic affect.

Thoughts?

I may have just stumbled upon a gem embedded in the invisible inter-weavings of cyber space. Actually, this feels like more of a full-out treasure trove, fantasy pirate-unwitting adventure-surprises around any corner style.

In a Google search for "historical literary podcasts", one that I embarked upon in an attempt to find a good source for background info on what I'm reading for my literature classes, one of the first links that popped up took me here:

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php

It's called "The Writer's Almanac" with Garrison Keillor, the unmistakable host of "A Prarie Home Companion", and it's an online historical, literary archive and weekly newsletter AND podcast (which features Mr. Keillor reporting highlights from this day in history and reading selected poems and other works).

In case you didn't know, I have recently begun shaping a part of who I believe I am going to be; that is, a dedicated fan of podcasting and literary journalism (aka creative nonfiction) and an aspiring writer/journalist/radio personality (dreaming big, here) in that field. It's why I changed my major to English, with an emphasis in creative writing. It's why I kept a blog about "The Dining Room" (see Theatre Thoughts) which I turned into my very first podcast. It's why I have probably close to a hundred episodes from NPR, This American Life and The Moth stored on my iPod.

Needless to say, I am hooked.

There's something a little depressing about coming home after being away for over a year and discovering that half of the clothes in your old closet are now too small for you. And it's not like you were a tiny little slip of a thing in high school, and this is due to natural growth. No, it's just that buttons won't fasten without pulling the fabric, or that shirt now hugs you just close enough to have crossed the line from "fitted" into "too small" territory. Besides, I think girls finish most of their "natural growth" by the time they graduate high school, anyway.

If you're wondering why I'm musing about clothing, it's because I just spent the last half hour doing something I'd been procrastinating for weeks: cleaning my room. Mostly, my messiness has to do with clothes. I get lazy so I don't put my clothes away at the end of the day, and they pile up on chairs and in baskets and sometimes just on the floor, until it gets so out of hand that I can't ignore it any more. Plus, I'm running out of clothes to wear, and I tire of digging through corners of my closet to find something clean. Which is how I discovered this "too small" thing. A very cute jacket I bought at Forever 21 when I was a senior in high school, and that I tried on again a few days ago to try and look nice while I went job-hunting, is now barely too small to button comfortably in the front.

Which is as good a segue as any: I am officially on the job hunt. So far I've applied at Starbucks and a couple of local restaurants.

I'd like to get a serving job, so today I got up early (well, early for a Saturday) and, along with a dozen or so fellow servers/aspiring servers, got my alcohol servers license (did I use "servers" too much in that sentence?). It made me feel like I was part of some elite group, sitting there at my white, plastic fold-up table, listening to stories and tips from those more seasoned at alcohol service. Because of it's effects, alcohol has to be monitored very, very carefully, and as a server of alcohol, you're the one responsible for monitoring customers, keeping track of how many they've had in what amount of time, and cutting them off before they're so drunk that if they go out and get in an accident, you're liable for over-service. Not to mention checking I.D.s, watching out for SID agents (which basically just means doing your job right), and keeping a strong front against customers who may get angry if you don't give them the drinks they want.

It gives you a sense of great responsibility to not only provide good customer service, but to also protect your customers, their families, and anyone else who could potentially be hurt by someone who's been drinking too much. As the class went on, it got a little daunting.

I was shocked to learn that it's actually against the law to refuse service of alcohol to a pregnant woman. The reasoning is that you can't discriminate again "classes of people", and pregnant women would fall under a "class of people." You can greatly discourage them from drinking, or pass them off to someone else to be served, but legally, there's nothing you can do to stop a pregnant woman from buying alcohol.

Anyway, five hours later and I'm licensed to serve alcohol, which will hopefully make me more hirable at restaurants.

The Sarah/Julie/Julia Project?

I've started reading Julie Powell's Julie and Julia, the middle installment of the movie-based-on-a-book-based-on-a-blog process that ended with last year's theatrical release starring the brilliant Meryl Streep and the adorable Amy Adams. At first, I was a little put-off by her crass language; it's not too much to be totally inappropriate, but it's enough to make her seem a little prickly around the edges.

But now I'm hooked. It's addicting, and a little inspiring - after all, Julie Powell was somewhat of an aspiring writer who got started by documenting her thoughts and impressions on a blog. I guess I take for granted how easy it is to be self-published these days. If you're good, it's a good way to get your foot in the door in the new-media/publishing industry.

Which begs the question: am I good? A college professor said in a lecture once that if you're posting online, you're findable. And if you're good, people will come to you. As of now, I don't exactly have a fanbase, outside of immediate family and friends. Maybe I need some kind of short-term goal to give my writing a more concrete direction and framework, like Julie Powell. That seems to be key to that kind of success, that is, having a goal, a thesis statement of sorts, to guide you as you present to the world something it's never seen before: life through your eyes.

All good things to keep in mind, but I think I'd have to start a new blog if I began a project like that. Which, of course, is the easy part.

Ever get to that point in one of those unethically-late school nights when you've gotten past the tiredness and you almost feel like just staying up and doing more work rather than going to sleep?

Well, I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but nonetheless, here I am, at 5:12 a.m., sitting on my couch and thinking to myself, "This always happens." I've been lazy. I've put off my work, and here I am, suffering the consequences. I actually finished a while ago, and for the past few minutes I've just been meandering around cyberspace.

I've gotta get over this.

Like Watching the Sunrise

I've always wondered at the concept of growing up. It's a complex process, and a transition that's impossible to pinpoint exactly. There doesn't seem to be a moment in time you can press your finger against and exclaim, "Aha! Here marks the turning point into adulthood."

No, it seems much more gradual, and seamless, than that. Of course, there are certain milestones everyone is familiar with (in no particular order): the eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays, graduating from college, moving out, marriage. But all of these things happen in different ways, and at different times, for all of us.

I think that growing up is like watching the sunrise. The world seems to barely change at first, yet before you know it, dawn has broken, and what was cool and dark and quiet only a few minutes before is now flooded with light and life and warmth. It is both fast and slow, both a stark change and a gradual one. The more I live, the more I see that life is a combination of paradoxes; it seems I have found one yet again.

I know several people - peers of mine, people I went to high school with - who are recently married. It's been very strange, watching people I know go through such a big life transition; mainly because it doesn't seem like much has changed. Just the other day, I was looking at photos from someone's honeymoon, and all I could think was that these people looked just the same as they always had. Nothing had changed. They were still the couple I had always known.

And that's when I realized that while marriage is a huge change, in some ways, it's not. People don't change completely after they get married. The next day, you're still the same person, the same couple, that you've always been. With your same mannerisms, sense of humor, goals, dreams, vices.

I think the reason this discovery came as such a surprise to me was that for all of my life up until now, there has been a great gap between me (the child) and married people (the mature adults who have their lives more or less sorted out). But now, I'm entering the stage of life where the adults, the ones becoming married people, are my peers, and I myself am a part of that group. The gap between me and adults that I know is slowly, yet quickly, shrinking.

I've always thought that I'll never realize I've grown up until it's already happened. I pictured myself looking into the mirror one day and realizing that I am no longer a child. That day hasn't come yet, and I'm not quite sure when it will. But it is coming, slowly, and quickly.

Big rocks, bigger sky, and not a soul in sight

I wandered around my house tonight, not sure what to do with myself. I pittered at the piano for a few minutes, and then picked up a giant book of Ansel Adams photography. I wanted company, so I made my way to the kitchen, sat down at the table across from my mom, and opened the book, rather listlessly.

I read a bit of the introduction, and learned that Ansel Adams documented the world with his photos longer ago than I thought. He first visited Yellowstone when he was fourteen, and I remember a date from the 1930s - early on in his career?

"Is Ansel Adams dead?" I asked my mom, bluntly.
She replied that she wasn't sure, but probably, yes.

Tired of reading, I flipped through the book, which is divided into sections: sky, water, plant, rock, and others. Any one of the photos are breathtaking. I'd like to see some of his color photos, I thought to myself, my eyes scanning black-and-white landscape after black-and-white landscape.

What I thought most interesting from the introduction was this: Adams' own description of his work. He saw it as divided into two sections: "within" and "without", "without" being his hired jobs (more color photos), and "within" being his own creative productions. Very cogent, Mr. Adams. Almost anything could be categorized as such, because all inspiration comes from one of two places: without one's self, or within one's self.

Sitting there, at the kitchen table, I reminded myself of my grandfather, whom we visited in France just a few weeks ago. In the evenings, when it would be just a few of us over at his house, he would sit there, at the dining room table, and read articles chosen at random from the World Book Encyclopedia.

The thought of it makes me a little sad, because I think he is lonely. I was a little lonely tonight, so I flipped through Ansel Adams' work with no particular direction or investment. To behave such likely means one of two things: one either possess some amount of free time and nothing better to do, or one is a little lonely. I suppose they are not mutually exclusive, and perhaps not necessarily bad. But I always hated saying goodnight to my grandfather, leaving him alone in that great big house.

Fuuuun.

Maybe stress inspires me to write. I guess it at least kicks me out of the "slouch couch" mode my mind was in a little while ago.

I was online checking up one some school stuff, and I noticed that I had some "late payments" on my account with the University of New Mexico. Let me explain: I had applied a while ago, because I had been in between what I wanted to do about school for a long time, and I still have an account open. Upon calling, I was informed by a bored-sounding (aren't they always bored-sounding? Could the people who work these jobs at least attempt to feign interest to make us lowly callers feel slightly more significant?) woman that none of my payments had been made for the fall semester. Uh-huh. Wait, what? Listen, bored woman, I did not attend UNM in the fall. I had considered it, so I had registered for some classes, but I decided against it and I made sure to inform admissions and other various offices of that decision.

Apparently, there's a rule I wasn't aware of that even if I tell UNM that I'm not attending, and they check it off and tell me that there's nothing else I need to do, I still need to drop the classes I registered for. I have an ugly, sneaking suspicion that this is some kind of common knowledge that I should have acquired by now, being in the middle of my second year of the university world, but it's not. Bored woman referred me to another office to sort this out, and told me that I might have to file an appeal, which could take (here's the fun part) up to four weeks to process.

So I call the second office, and am answered by a woman who (Lord bless her) had a little more human empathy toward my situation. Other than emotional support, however, there wasn't much more she could do for me. She said that I needed to call the office who had referred me to her, and sort it out with them. By this time, the offices were going to close in a matter of minutes, and I was a little too frustrated to call the bored woman again.

I guess I'll be making a bunch of phone calls tomorrow, and hopefully I can sort this out without having to file that appeal.

Slouch Couch

Wow, I've been really horrible at my "write one thing a day" rule. The past few days I've just been lying around my house, which is empty save for my two cats, Hawkeye and Hoss. Hoss is keeping me company right now on the couch, and I'm watching an episode of CSI.

In a way, I feel like my Christmas break just got started. The first week back was so crazy, what with Christmas and shopping and seeing family, and then we left for France, and I've been back since Thursday. A couple of my friends are already back at school. Weird.