Thursday, October 28, 2004

willing

in my ears
try
artist: bebo norman
song: disappear


This crying thing is really becoming a regular event. This time, I was talking to Mom when I broke down. Three days in a row, here I am crying. And it's hard to explain why I am crying because I'm not sure. I do know what I'm crying about, but not why. Probably doesn't make sense, eh?

I'm trying to decide if I want to try to go to Thailand this summer. There are few things I've ever felt such a strong desire to do. But it is more than desire. I feel compelled. I think. It is a huge decision. Part of me is excited at the thought, and the other part is terrified. By leaving this country, or just this town, for two months during the summer, my future will definitely be affected. I could be here taking classes and all that. But I need something to affect me, you know. But I don't want that to be my entire motivation. Anyway, even if I decide I'm going to try to go, I may not be able to. I'll have to go to an interview in Bowling Green in a few weeks. This is huge. I'm not worrying about what it will cost me, financially and otherwise. That's not how I'm weighing this. I want to know if Thailand is where I belong this summer. Because I'm willing to go.

okay tears

I want to go to North Carolina. I don't know why. One of the videos we watched in earth science lab was about the barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, and it reminded me of that longing to go there. I don't know what it is, but just thinking about it is exciting. Maybe one day I'll figure out a good reason to go, and I just might.

I had a good cry last night. The last two times I've cried have been immediately after I've hung up with Mom. And I haven't necessarily been crying because she's hurt my feelings or anything, but there have been things that she has said that trigger something within me and starts a steady stream of tears right out of a dry spell that has been showing no signs of ending. Last night, they were okay tears. Just like many of mine, they came from being overwhelmed, I think. But this time, it was a different type of overwhelmed, almost a comfort in being small.

I need to meet with my advisors. This is a new concept for me. I've never met with my education advisor, and I'd say that meeting is long overdue. I should have been admitted into the College of Education last semester, probably. But I also need to meet with Hamurabi to get this stinking hold of my account. (It sure is nice that the advisor hold policy follows me through college.) I'm not sure what classes I'm going to take next semester. So far it looks like this: teaching writing, teaching reading, advanced composition, Spanish, women's literature, and maybe creative non-fiction. Oh, my sweet mother. That is eighteen hours. And none of them are going to be easy. Maybe I need to rethink this. Ah, and I need to take contemporary literature! And linguistics! This is painful...

[Much fretting and finagling of class schedule.]

Well, after a little virtual schedule action, I've learned that I can't take creative non-fiction and teaching reading at the same time. The prospect of an extra semester seems so nice. That, however, is yet to be determined.

Before I go, I'd like to invite the entire handful of you to the ESO fall poetry reading that will be going on tomorrow night in Faculty Hall 208 at 7:00 pm. I'm sure that's what you want to do on a Friday night, but I'm sure it will be great fun. I went to the one last year, and I really enjoyed it. This year, I'm actually in the organization, so I'm expected to be there. And who knows. I might even read something myself. Reading is open to anyone who wants to read poetry or short prose of their own or of someone else. And there are sure to be deep-thinking, shaggy-haired boys abound. So you know I'll be there.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

to novel or not to novel

I ought to be doing dishes. There is something foul in that sink, and I need it to go away. I ought to be working on my paper for BarbCobb, but she has extended the due date, which extends my procrastintion. I ought to be in bed. I have to get up pretty early in the morning, as usual. But somehow, I felt like I ought to blog.

Don't ask me why. I'm not so sure.

It's been a long ol' day. Tuesdays just are. It began with Shakespeare, where my mid-term was returned to me. He gave us a three-point acknowledgement of the fact that we were interrupted with a fire alarm and had to transplant ourselves during the test. Those three points turned my grade from an 87 to a 90. It feels a little cheap, but I guess it counts. But I sure don't think that's too bad for only having read approximately one and a half plays. Earth science was earth science as usual: mind-numbing. I came home after chicken with Justin and eventually worked on my lesson plan for tonight. Much to my surprise, I was fairly confident about it, but to tell you the truth, I hardly remember teaching. The time flew by, and I'm not sure I did a thing. But I got a 98 on it, so apparently, I did okay. She also handed back our research papers. 93, there. It was a 92, but I proved that my MLA was sound and snagged back another point. All these grades sound good, but you know what they say to me? Grades, numbers on a scale from 0-100, really don't mean a thing. They surely don't reflect my efforts. It's a mystery.

So I'm thinking about this NaNoWriMo thing. Maybe you've noticed the Thirty Days Hath November link on the left. And maybe you've followed it. If you have, you know that I've signed myself up to particpate in National Novel Writing Month, being next month. Participants are challenged to compose 50,000 words' worth of writing that could loosely be passed off as a novel in a span of thirty days. Do you realize how much that is? Let's look at it this way. In the past year, I've written approximately 91,000 words on this blog. That would make one month's work equal to over half of what I've written in twelve months. Well over 1,000 words per day. And this would be fabricated fiction, too. Not me droning on about the meaningless details of my life.

So why did I sign up to begin with? I don't know. I can't even write a paper over a week's time. I always have to wait until the last minute. This will require me to keep up a word-count quota every day. I think I'm insane. By signing up, that doesn't mean I have to churn out 50,000 words or some dark council will sacrifice me by moonlight, but if I start it, I want to complete it. And if I don't do it, I may never. [See previous post concerning things I want to do before I die: Write a book.] But it is honestly about the last thing I need to be doing. I do have a tendency to put a lot of effort into things I ought not, so this could be quite successful. However, that simple fact means I'll likely devote my entire month to this piece of crap and completely neglect everything else in life. And who made this thing during a month with a major holiday? Just because November starts with the same four letters as novel... I don't know. I'm just trying to decide if I should do it or not. I probably will. Stupid me.

from a long line of bloggers

in my ears
artist: century century
album: seattle '98 bootleg




This little thing here has quite a lineage, one I'd rather not recount, but it is my duty to keep it alive.

Three things I'm wearing right now:
  1. The girliest socks I own. They have little purple flowers across the toe and around the ankle.
  2. The jeans I wear practically every day. They're about to give out.
  3. And um, a white half-length sleeved, boat-neck shirt.

Three things on my desk:

Okay, you must first know that I don't have a desk. It's the trunk in the middle of my living room floor I'm using as a coffee table, which I am, in turn, using as a desk.

  1. The Dido CD that Ashley let me borrow to burn.
  2. My Quik Tune guitar tuner that decided to somewhat die yesterday.
  3. The stack of really cute blank-inside cards that I, once upon a time, thought I'd send to my FY girls. Ha.

Three things I want to do before I die:

  1. Write a book. I don't know what kind.
  2. Travel outside of this continent.
  3. Fall in love, of course.

Three good ways to describe my personality:

  1. Understanding.
  2. Insightful.
  3. Slightly creative, on good days.

Three bad things about my personality:

  1. I can get a little defensive.
  2. Too often, my attitude is one of indifference.
  3. I have the confidence of a pissant.

Three things I like about my body:

  1. The color of my eyes.
  2. Some days, my hair.
  3. Yeah, that's about it.

Three things I don't like about my body:

  1. My feet.
  2. My fingernails.
  3. My everything else.

Three things I say the most:

  1. "...and all that jazz."
  2. I find that "quite" is one of my favorite adverbs.
  3. As is "indeed."

Three places I want to go:

  1. The New England states.
  2. An Asian country.
  3. A European country.
    (I know. I tried to be as specific as possible.)

Three names I go by:

  1. Cassidy.
  2. Cass.
  3. Sassy.

Three screen-names I have had:

  1. cassarole220
  2. cassadiddy4
  3. cassidynorvell

Three people I consider best friends:

  1. Holly.
  2. Dale.
  3. Mom.

Three CDs I couldn't live without:

I tried to limit myself to one John Mayer CD, but I realized I couldn't. Then after I decided it would be a random choice between three, I couldn't think of another CD I really couldn't live without. So here they are. Count 'em. Three John Mayer CDs. I can live without them. They're just my favorites.

  1. Room for Squares
  2. Heavier Things
  3. Any Given Thursday, Disc Two

Three websites I visit the most frequently:

  1. blogger.com
  2. dictionary.com
  3. hotmail.com

Three books I want to read:

  1. The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
  2. My People's Waltz, Dale Ray Phillips
  3. The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
    (I know. I can't believe I haven't read it either.)

Three things that make me cry:

  1. Being yelled at.
  2. Losing someone, regardless of the means.
  3. The most random things can make me cry if I haven't for a long, long time.

Three things that make me laugh:

  1. Random outbursts, i.e. "Daddy!"
  2. My family, in all their retarded glory.
  3. When someone, usually Holly, and I say the same crazy thing at the same time.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

songs

in my ears
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind [soundtrack]
artist: beck
song: everybody's gotta learn sometime




I should probably be in bed, but I just put a load of towels and other such things in the washer. I have to stay up at least however long that cycle lasts so I can put them in the dryer. I want to assume that's the residential college washing machine cycle of twenty-six minutes.

I was going to work on my paper for BarbCobb today, but I never got around to it. I ended up watching some of CMT's "Outlaws Week" programming: Shocking: Moonshine Madness and Morning After: Top 40 Drinking Songs. Quality television, right there. Then Holly, Jenny, and I went to Nick's and sat at the Jesus Jones table, and much to our astonishment, their Musak played "Right Here, Right Now" by none other than Jesus Jones. Hooray for coincidences. We came back and were going to launch into some Scattergorizing, but on the way in, we noticed Janitha's karaoke program was getting ready to start. We thought we'd hang out for a few minutes. We ended up spending a couple hours rocking the karaoke mic. Once Holly and I gave our stunning performance as a duet singing "If I Had a Million Dollars" by Barenaked Ladies, we couldn't stop. Before it was over, I did, either by myself or with someone else, "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," "Cleaning Out My Closet" (Yes, I finally got to showcase that talent.), "Disease," "Friends in Low Places," "Only Wanna Be with You," and "Baby Love." Check out all those dude songs. We finally got around to Scattergories for ten lists.


I'm pretty much tired, but I think I'm going to catch up on my Chronicles of Narnia reading. I'm determined to actually read it all. I'm only on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe right now. I'm thinking after I finish that, I'll pick up on the Harry Potter series and maybe eventually, the Lord of the Rings books. I'm getting geekier by the day, but I do enjoy it. Fantasy genre, here I come.

Friday, October 22, 2004

a year of blog

I am going to cry. I am quite certain of it. I have just spent the past two hours working on my monumental "history of my blog" post. I was almost done, and I thought, "Hmm, I better save this as a draft really quick just in case something happens and all this work disappears." I clicked "Save as Draft," and went to another window to look a date up on my blog for reference. When I looked back down at the task bar, I saw those dreaded and unfinished words. "Cannot find ser..." Why, oh why didn't I copy it all before hitting that button?

Anyway, it is indeed the one year anniversary of this blog. So many things have happened in the past year that in many ways, it feels like a decade has passed. Life has been moving at such a rapid pace, and the people I've only really known a year I feel like I've known all my life. This day, as I have mentioned before, is also the anniversary of what, at one point, came to be known as the B-Unit.

In this one year, I've learned so much. About myself, about other people, about life, about God. Just so much. I feel like I've grown up at an exponential rate, but it's not the kind of growing up that makes me sad. I do wonder what happened to the days when I sat around and had to search for something to do with my time, and I wish sometimes that I could be a kid again. But I'm beginning to learn that no matter what's going on in my life, I'm still me. I've grown up to the point where I realize that growing up isn't necessarily conforming to the "real world," but it's living and not letting that real world encroach upon who I am.

I cannot bring myself to re-write the post that I lost to the evil blog-eating internet, but I cannot let every bit of my work be lost forever. Thank goodness I had some of the work drafted and saved prior to this mishap. So instead of the unabridged version, here is a brief history of my blog:

  • I began this blog on 22 October 2003.
  • Since then I have posted between 250-300 times. (My post counter hasn't updated for several weeks, so I'm stuck at 262.)
  • To date, I have received over 2,374 hits, not including my own hits or the hits received before 27 January 2004, when I didn't have a data archiving service
  • I have posted approximately 115 photos hosted at Photobucket.
  • John Mayer has been mentioned well over fifty times.
  • The single most searched phrase that has led people to my site is "heterosexual lover of rainbows."
  • I have received the most referred hits from Another Social Casualty, Holly's blog.
  • In May 2004, I changed the title and address of my blog from Back Porch Poet at http://backporchpoet.blogspot.com to Washed Up at http://washed-up.blogspot.com.
  • On 27 May 2004, I launched the first blog design that I created completely on my own using the HTML and CSS skills I had gained by refusing to let my blog be. (This is design 8 in the chronology.)
  • I have significantly altered my blog's appearance a dozen times. This is blog design lucky thirteen.
  • I host my new photos at Flickr.
  • Those photos and my entire site are now under a Creative Commons License.

For those of you who'd like to see a visual history of my blog, you can click the links below to see all of my blog designs in chronological order.

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10 . 11 . 12

Here's to another year.


Tuesday, October 19, 2004

sprachgefühl

Ah. At last, a moment to rest. Nevermind fall break. Mid-terms encompassed something like three weeks, and today saw the last of it. It is been an adventure. In the past twenty-four hours, I have waded through the depths of a flooded Olive Boulevard while the tornado warning siren was sounding to get to the library to study for my Shakespeare mid-term, and I've migrated from Faculty Hall to the library in the middle of said exam due to an unfortunate fire drill. Shakespeare, sirens, and the library. All very pleasant things. All the more pleasant when combined and repeated. But they're over.

Dr. Brown graded our papers while we took the exam and returned them before we left. B+. I'm satisfied. He said it is an A paper, but I should more carefully proofread. Well, dear, it would have helped if I had proofread to begin with. I hardly ever proofread papers, and it is my downfall. I am so exhausted by the time I finish my paper, I don't feel like proofing. And many times, I'm writing the last sentence three seconds before class starts. Who has time to look for mistakes? I should definitely change my ways.

I had another last-minute run-in with the library at about 5:28 this afternoon when I was printing off my stuff for the teaching demonstration we were to be prepared for. At 5:30. I barely made it to class on time. I might have been a little late. Either way, I indeed slid into my seat like Zack Morris. Turns out, I successfully avoided having to do my demonstration tonight. I go next week, and I am so grateful. So at 5:25 next Tuesday afternoon, I'll be scrambling to rework my lesson plan. I never learn.

I did however learn a new word tonight. Sprachgefühl. Wonderful Bill gave his demonstration tonight, and he began by explaining this word to us. It's a German word meaning "language feeling." It describes our intuition to speak our native language. We just know the words feel right. I've always been aware of this concept, but I never knew the word. Anyway, it's especially relevant when talking with non-native speakers. I think it's so interesting that we have an intuitive bond with our native language. Something to think about.

For the past couple weeks, this apartment has been turned upside down. Wherever something has landed after its use, that is where it has stayed. I'm out of groceries for the most part. I had to wash both a spoon and a bowl to fix my canned soup. I drank a little bottle of Gatorade with that lovely meal because it's all I could find in my refrigerator short of milk, and milk would have required me to wash a glass. But now that I've eaten, I think I'm going to do those dishes and recover this place from chaos.

Monday, October 18, 2004

breakaway

Maybe it is because I have so much to do, but I would really enjoy changing my entire lifestyle right now. Stress has a way of making me long for a completely different life. And right now, I've got the stress. Note the Spanish workbook due today, the Shakespeare mid-term tomorrow, the 5-8 page Shakespeare paper due tomorrow, and the teaching demonstration I have to do tomorrow night, including a fully-loaded KTIP lesson plan. So maybe it is all of this, but maybe those are just the things I have to do as a part of this cookie-cutter (Hanson, what?) life I've fallen into.

I guess I just oftentimes get so aggravated with the conformity and miserable cycle of life as it has come to be. I don't mean my life, really. The life that we're all expected to lead. There is just so much pressure. The pressure to succeed, which automatically translates to income. That has created the pressure to get a degree, which automatically falls back on somebody's income somewhere. So now that there is all this money, so dearly-loved money, tied up in this education, there is pressure to make it work. You have to pick the right thing, love it, do very well at it, complete it, and live by it for the rest of your life. Pressure. I'm all for education and the acquisition of knowledge, but when did it become the pseudo-be-all and end-all of human existence? By pseudo, I mean that it is this tangled up affair with money disguised as the pursuit of a greater, more educated humanity.

I find myself so many times recently experiencing true life, instants when I know I'm getting a taste of how life should be, when I'm disconnected from the life that has become my everyday experience. So essentially, it's not that I don't feel content. I do. In glimmering moments. Moments that are external to this daily life of mine, like when I am at home or with my family or doing something I don't "need" to be doing when I should be doing things for school.

I don't know if I am just blessed to have those moments and am too much wanting a life that is one big happy experience or if I am keeping myself apart from the life in which I belong. Honestly, what is the alternative to this? Drop out of school? No, that's not scary at all. I guess life is scary no matter what. But like I said, stress that comes from procrastination makes me panic. Something about it makes me step back and consider why I let myself get so caught up in and stressed out about a life to which I sometimes feel involuntarily bound. And by bound, I am implying the most literal concept of watching my life pass me by while I'm unable to break free and join it.

Sunday, October 17, 2004

eternally present

This weekend was a good weekend. It was the first time I have been home in who knows how long. And I could tell. Things always change so much while I'm gone. Not the kind of change that you're aware of if you're in the middle of it. That gradual change that happens when you're not looking, that catches you by surprise only by looking not at where you are but where you have been.

Yesterday, Mom and I went to Madisonville. Instead of taking the conventional way home, we took 630 to Dixon and then Oak Heights, Jack Allen, and Poole Mill Roads before home. All just to look at the turning leaves. That last jag from Oak Heights through Poole Mill Road is my old bus route. I haven't been through there in over four years, and I have never driven it all. It was a most literal drive down the legendary memory lane. Those people and places are ones that I haven't thought of in years. The one-lane winding roads with grown-up fencerows atop tall banks and the green and golden valleys and hills in the light of the dropping sun were almost too nostalgic to be real. The sheer reality of it all, though, was enough to make me think about the nature of past, present, future, and how they relate to our lives.

"Living in the past" is generally looked down upon. I don't really know how possible that life is. Just as possible as living in the future, maybe? I suppose the danger lies in constantly trying to get to those places: the ones that have gone forever and the ones that are just out of reach. But where we are is where we are. It has just been the future and has just become the past. It's just a puzzling concept, and I somehow think I can use it to justify my living the past for an afternoon. But for those few moments, I took my past and made it my present.


Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.


T. S. Eliot, from Burnt Norton, Four Quartets

Thursday, October 14, 2004

one and twenty

Right now, it is 11:59, and the last moment of being twenty is fleeting. By the time I post this, I will be--oh, and there it is--twenty-one.

Well, I surely don't feel any different. I don't think. It is so strange to me that I have lived twenty-one years. As you can always expect from me, I see it two ways. On the one hand, I can't believe I've been around for that many years. And on the other proverbial hand, I feel like that is such a short time. I don't know. Why bother with trying to figure it out. For the shock factor, I always like to compare my age to someone else's life at this particular age. When I was ninteen, I wondered at the fact that my sister was that age when she married. How young it seemed. Ah, but now, my mom married when she was twenty-one, and that has never seemed young to me. Until now. I wonder when we stop seeing ourselves as so young.

Tomorrow's going to be a busy day. Filled with responsibilities, appropriately enough. I have to scramble my Shakespeare things together, take those two earth science tests, fill out my time card, do some business at Sparks, and I must wash dishes before I leave for the weekend. How adult. Bleh. I find it interesting that we've given times in our lives certain labels that entail certain characteristics. A person can't just be a person. We are either young or old, a child or an adult, a kid or a grown-up. I've never thought about it, but rites of passage give you new job descriptions as you go along. Maybe it's just me or maybe it's just tonight, but that seems quite absurd.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

good mood morning

Good morning. Not so sure why, but I am in a good mood. I didn't wake up so happy, though. I really do not enjoy the darkness when it's time to get out of bed. That definitely makes me feel old and under-rested. But maybe I am both. Eck.

I think part of my good mood is the fact that I disregarded all of my homework and other stress-inducing activities last night to begin reading The Magician's Nephew, the "first" book of The Chronicles of Narnia. I say "first" book because there is quite a discrepancy about the order in which the seven books should be read. Some people believe they are to be read in the order they were published. Others believe they should be read in the chronological order of the stories, which is different. The HarperCollins edition that I bought has them bound in the chronological order, so I guess that's how I'm going to read them. Anyway, it occurs to me that I didn't read all that much as a child, and I enjoy making up for it. I'm considering this book a birthday present for myself. Way to go. Celebrate turning twenty-one by reading children's fantasy stories. I so often have a backwards way of going about things, and I love it.

I keep saying I'm going to get my hair cut, and I think I may do that this afternoon. There is no sense in all this long mess. The curls tend to do better when it's shorter anyway. Plus, I'd like to straighten my hair some, but it just takes way too much effort to pull that off with twelve feet of hair. I do fear, though, that I may miss it. Why? Yeah, I don't know. I'm not even sure how much I'm going to have cut off. I guess we'll all find out when I get it cut...

Well, I have some poem scansion to do. I have absolutely no knack for this task. It's where you go through the poem and mark the syllables as stressed and unstressed. I tend to want to put everything in iambic feet even when it's not supposed to be. Yay for poetry.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

library potpourri

I am at the library and getting ready to print off my research paper. Finally. It's not the greatest, but it'll do. I did cleverly, I must so say myself, title it "Can Poetry Smell Fear?" That's about the only good part of it, unless you count my introductory and concluding material. Those would be the parts I write when I'm first fired up about writing and when I'm in such a hurry I write whatever I can to meet the requirement. Both bullcrap. Both seem to be liked by professors. Figure that out. Too bad I cannot sufficiently bullcrap my entire way through a paper.

I acquired my beautiful copy of The Chronicles of Narnia today. I'm way too excited about that. I bought it with that gift certificate I won because I filled out a survey during the test run of giving out free USA Todays. The program took off nicely. I've only picked up one paper since. But hey, I did get $50 at the bookstore, and I'm using it. Not sure what to do with the money I have left over. I tell you what, though. I can't wait to read The Chronicles of Narnia. I'm just not sure when I plan on finding time to do that.

I just had a weird experience. I noticed a guy across the library who I thought was Guy A. After another glance, I noticed it was Guy B. Not so weird, you say? But Guy A and Guy B used to be roommates. My memory and imagination tend to play tricks on me. Whatever, though. It isn't nearly as strange as that whole thing I do where I think I see someone, but I've only mistaken someone else for them. Then about five seconds later, I see the actual person. Now that's creepy stuff, and it happens to me on a regular basis.

For those of you who care, and something tells me no one cares, I'm sitting in the seat where I would have been a Cassidy sandwich between J. Matt and JMG that one day. Which, really, I wonder if those two fellows are enough alike to constitute a sandwich of me. Well, it would be an interesting situation nonetheless. Uncomfortable, to say the least.

Alright, now that I have that paper out of the way, some of this week's stress has been eliminated. I still have to prepare for tomorrow's composition in Spanish. That sucker has to be like 150 words long. That might not seem so bad, but try writing that much in another language. Yeesh. And then I have those two earth science tests on Thursday. Somehow, I'm not all that stressed about them. The one for lecture won't be so bad as long as I look at the old quizzes. The lab one may take some more time, but at least the concepts aren't that hard to grasp. I'm not used to studying disembodied scientific concepts. I'm more of an interconnected-progression-of-literature or language-that-builds-on-itself type of girl.

Oh, there went JMG. Man, he's always at the library. And now that he's here, it's probably my cue to go. Oh, wait. There's more. The annoying man Jerry from my grammar class that informed me yesterday that I need to have to have the misspelling of privilege that appears on the CTLT log-in screen corrected just showed up. Now that the library has all these computers, you never know who you might see. I guess it's my Winslow replacement for people watching. Anyway, I'm really going this time. I'd hate to get stuck at the last minute if the printer wasn't working.

Monday, October 11, 2004

oh, dread

It is the napworthiest of days. The gloomy rain begs me to curl up on the couch and sleep for hours, but I cannot. Oh, how I must write this research paper! I think I've decided what I'm going to write about, and I even checked a book out from the library. That's some serious business considering I had to pay $65 for the last book I got there.

Today brought the darker side of fall. It's very obvious that I love the familiarity of the season, but there are some things with which I'd rather not feel so familiar. The cold raininess reminded me of the stress of midterms. It's not as if I hadn't been feeling it, but an extra sense of dread hangs in the air and reminds me that I have so many things to do and not nearly enough time to do them all. The cooling temperatures mean that winter, in all its dreariness, is coming, and precious time is passing. The drizzly weather makes a somber mood, something much more conducive to sulking and sleeping than anything else.

new simplicity

"Bye, baby John. Ugh, it's going to be a long day. And a rainy one, too. Should I walk? Should I drive? Should I walk? Should I drive? Ah, forget the walking. I'm driving."

That was me this morning as I was slinging on my backpack and heading out the door. Yes, I talk to the fish. And yes, I talk to myself.

I was looking forward to walking to class this morning. Leaves are really turning, and I love it. Walking through the quad at about 7:45 in the morning is actually enjoyable, especially with all the autumn going on. Walking back home at about 3:30 this afternoon in the rain didn't seem quite as appealing. I was surprised with my own disappointment. How bent could I be on walking?

After all, I am quite tired. I didn't get to bed until after midnight again. Six hours of sleep is not completely a robbery, but I wouldn't consider it a great night's rest. Especially when the alarm goes off and it still looks like the middle of the night outside. But that's what I get for spending an hour or so reworking the blog design when I should have been in bed. I bet if you compared the dates of new blog designs with all my syllabi, you'd find that I launched new designs on the days before major projects were due. I have averaged about one new design per month of this blog's existence. One of these days, I'll settle down.

Anyway, let's talk about all the fun things this design has to offer. The header photos are ones that I took this summer at our farm. I've dropped the concept of the journal scrolling independently of the rest of the blog page and have gone with a more stable layout that is browser-friendly. (I've tested it with Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox.) Obviously, the newest and most fun feature is my Flickr badge that displays a random assortment of photos from my photo album. For the most part, these are pictures that I haven't put in journal entries, or they are complete versions of photos I have cropped for whatever reason. Click on one to see the full view and a nifty little description. I may be adding some more features as I take the notion, but I'm trying to keep it simple. Unlike most everything else.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

people watching all the people

It's Sunday night again. Already. How quickly time passes. The extra week I had to do my teaching English research paper has come and gone, and the paper still is not written. It's research that I'm actually enthusiastic about doing, so explain why I haven't done it yet. That explanation might fix lots of my inadequacies.

This is the first weekend in a while that I haven't gone to Calvert City. Today, Sissy, Randy, Victoria, and Kathryn travelled home to see the parents. I, on the other hand, have spent my weekend pretty much put. I rented three movies from Blockbuster: Dead Poets Society, Saved!, and because you can rent two and get the third one free, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Yes, I'd never seen Dead Poets Society, and I have been reaping the consequences all sorts of folks. I am glad I finally saw it. Very good film. I've already given my dissertation on Saved! By renting Eternal Sunshine, I was able to go back and piece together some of those parts I might have been a little blurry about. I must say that my cinematic choices were wise. And I can't forget to take those back to Blockbuster after work.

Hehe. I love to people watch. From my view here at the desk, I can see lots of people milling about around Hart, Winslow, and Elizabeth. I just saw a little boy on a bike speeding by, and I thought that was rather unusual as he was definitely not old enough to be be out riding by himself. Within about five or ten seconds, an older man clad in khakis and a button-up shirt went sprinting by in the same direction, obviously in hot pursuit of this kid. It was quite clear that this was a late afternoon stroll on campus gone wrong. The supervising gentleman had certainly not planned on chasing the youngster, and the boy undoubtedly did not intend on being caught.

Saturday, October 09, 2004

saved!

I just finished watching Saved! Maybe many Christians think it is a horrible mockery of Christianity and Jesus, but I think the film is so sadly true. In actuality, it is a statement about the mockery that those many "Christians" have made of Jesus.

The too common Christianity that the world sees is a commercialized hype. Isn't it bad that I can hardly stand the word "Christianity"? The connotation now is that it is some cult, and in many ways, this "faith" that people have created is just as much of a cult as anything else. The fake faith that people have created distracts from the truth. Somehow, maybe as a way of to try to attract "sinners," "Christians" have made their particular Jesus into nothing more than a fashion statement and the latest craze. And somehow, "Christians" have concluded that they are perfect and everyone who is not is different, an outcast. This is not the truth.

First of all, I don't need--I shouldn't need--a t-shirt or a bumpersticker to confirm my faith to myself or anyone else, especially God. And it hurts me to think we've reduced the lover of our souls to a pep rally song: I love Jesus! Yes, I do! I love Jesus! How 'bout you? Yes, that's just as fake as school spirit. And I don't believe I can dictate where He is or who He loves.

Yes, I believe that God sees all that we do. But He has His own infinite wisdom about all that. I am no one to judge. I am to love and not condemn. I, too, am just condemnable. We are all imperfect. Salvation is not something you prescribe to an "errant" person to make them an angel. It's not the be all and end all of some magical holiness to be recorded on some "I love Jesus" business card.

It is the very recognition that we are all a bunch of screw-ups, even ourselves. And not one of us can do anything about that. It doesn't matter how many times we wear a WWJD bracelet or punish ourselves for doing something wrong: We are not righteous. No, not even one.

The misconception is that once we've come to know the Truth, we're perfect. Many so-called Christians believe that. That is the source of all the judgmentalism on their part. And it's the mother of perceived hypocrisy.

Truth is a beautiful complexity. It is beyond my limited understanding, and we fail when we try to bring down to our level and try to fit it into a pop culture-sized box. Do I see everything in black and white? No. Most days, all I can see is grey. But that does not mean that black and white does not exist. Just because I am not perfect doesn't mean that perfection doesn't exist. There is my faith.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

dissipate

I'd never really thought about it until today in class. Someone used the word "dissipate," and I automatically thought, "It dissipates and soon evaporates, but home life doesn't change." I never realized that words had formed an associative bond with that song, but why would I be surprised? My brain is a tightly woven web of associations. I guess everyone's is. Otherwise, we wouldn't learn. But mine is a little hyperactive.

Way to start the last two posts with a John Mayer lyric conversation.

Big news: I finally got my very own key to the Applied Science lab, so I can let myself in when I get to work instead of having to wait for my boss. Yay.

I'm a little busy, I guess. I have conversation class here in a few minutes, and then Jennie, Tessa, and I are meeting to study for our BarbCobb test. And I'm supposed to have an earth science quiz in the morning, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to look over that a little. But at least I don't have Shakespeare tomorrow. Like Dr. Brown himself said, we're quite lucky to have the assistant dean of our academic college as a professor. He has all kinds of important excuses for cancelling class.

I am so out of everything here. I need bread, sugar, laundry detergent, and all kinds of other things. I keep forgetting to go to WalMart. I guess I could actually do that today after I leave the BSU. That is if I can get away before it's time to meet my study group. Conversation class has a way of lasting forever, but it's lots of fun. And I guess I could go to that now. If I could get up. I'm sitting in the floor. And my entire right leg is asleep.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

(ir)responsibility

With all the "St. Patrick's Day" references going on in people's journals, the Heavier Things Tour 2003 shirt I busted out today, and the absolutely icy coldness that met me when I stepped out of my door this morning, the line "here comes the cold" has been emblazoned on my brain. (And it's not even SPD season yet. All hail November.) But the torture has been that I couldn't, could not, remember the next line. I basically knew that it was "break out the winter clothes," but I couldn't get myself to say it. You know why? Because the tune of "here comes the cold" in my mental jukebox registers something resembling "I know a girl." "Daughters" (and might I add that as much of a die-hard John Mayer fan that I am, I didn't realize for a long time that it was released on the radio) and "St. Patrick's Day" have been all jumbled up inside my head. So all day, until now when I pulled out my trusty Room For Squares CD jacket and confirmed the lyrics, I've been singing this: "Here comes the cold. She puts the color inside of my world."

I need to make a confession. I am one completely irresponisble, ungrateful squanderer. Aside from yesterday's passive citizenship, I've screwed up again. Okay. Sunday at Sissy's, Mom gave me some cash. Like forty dollars worth of cash. Because I was not near my purse, I just stuck it in my pocket. I knew that I shouldn't have put it there, but I did. And with my usual style of procrastination, I told myself I'd put it where it belonged later. I didn't. Today, I remember digging in my pocket for something and feeling the money. (Yes, I'm wearing the same unwashed jeans.) And then later, it was gone. Yes, gone. It's not here. It's somewhere on campus or any someone's pocket or wherever. But I don't have it.

Just like with my non-registration, I know the consequences. I can't complain about the election. Whatever. That whole soap-box gets on my nerves anyway. And I know that the losing of this money means forty dollars less in my pocket. Again, whatever. I'll just have to be more careful with spending. The real problem is me. How ungrateful can I be that I just throw these privileges, these gifts around without concern? But I'm not too down on myself about it. Yes, they were immature things to do (well, not to do), but recognizing them and learning from them is a maturing process. For that, I am thankful. If I'd never lost the money, would I ever have realized this?

Um, in other news, I've gotten two tests back. Spanish: 94.5. Earth science: 93. Now, only if I can keep this up. I have a BarbCobb test Friday. And a great amount of other mid-termy type things to do. And I need to be catching up on my work for my night class. So I'll be doing that now.

Monday, October 04, 2004

hamartia

Procrastination has finally gotten the best of me. I have officially forfeited my right to vote in this year's presidential election.

I know. Don't scold me. My vote is my vote and not yours. And I didn't mean to not register. It all began long ago in the Henderson County Courthouse. Mom and I were there to pay some sort of tax or something. Well, that's what she was there for. I was there to register to vote. This was, I don't know, at least six months ago. But the hateful woman, I dare not call her lady, smirked at me and told me the books were closed for the day. In a fit of rage, I stomped out of the building mumbling something about not wanting to vote anyway. That was sarcasm, might I add.

It's not that woman's fault. I've been over 18 years of age for almost three years. She just picked a particularly rare politically active moment in my life to bite my head off. That wasn't the best move. But I could have registered since then, but in my disgust, I didn't. Not even while I was at the Awareness Fair, where I told Jenny I would register today. My reasons for not registering at that thing was that I didn't trust it. You think I'm going to give my social security number to those crazed hippies? Well, I guess I should have because I didn't remember today was the last day to register until about 4:35. Five minutes after the Calloway County Courthouse closed. But I rushed to the Curris Center anyway, hoping the registration table was still set up. Nope. I rushed to the courthouse, hoping that closing time was 5:00 instead of 4:30. Nope. As a last ditch effort, I sped like a maniac to the post office. For what reason, I am not sure. It's a government building, but no. Its doors had closed, too. On the verge of tears, I came home to see if I could register online. Well, first off, my printer is out of ink. And the mail-in form had to have been delivered by today. So much for that.

You may be a little confused. If you have read my post about this year's election, you might wonder why I even care. Well, the truth is that I may not have voted on November 2, but now, even my choice to do so is gone. By that time, I might have actually come to a conclusion about who I'd vote for. Maybe not. But now, it doesn't matter. Chances are that I would have scrambled to cast my ballot and missed it by this much, just like I did today.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

sunday circus

Sundays. They are kind of strange days. There are certain days of the week that get their very own feeling. Mondays have a certain feel. Fridays have a certain feel. Saturday, now, it has a slightly confusing feel to it. Like it's not sure if it's Friday or Sunday. But Sunday, it has its own feeling. And I think it might be different for everyone, but regardless, there's something different about a Sunday.

I slept too late again. And then I just laid there in bed. Thinking. And hitting the snooze button on my phone even though I was awake. After taking my precious time getting showered and such, I did the whole weekend thing and went to Sissy's to see the family. That was a short visit. I didn't get to Calvert until 2:00, and I had to leave a little after 4:00 so I could be here to work by 5:00. While I am here, I need to work on my research paper that, no, I haven't worked on yet. I always find something much more meaningless and entertaining to do. And it's not that I mind doing the work. I just have such a difficult time getting started. And by the time I get home, it'll almost be 9:00, and I'll have to go to bed somewhat early because I have to be at work again at 8:00 tomorrow morning. Then where will the day have gone? I don't like days that pass before I know it. Because they turn into weeks, months, and years that have passed, and I'll never know where they went. That's such a scary thought to me. So Sundays give me an eerie feeling. And I wish they didn't.

I feel like I need to be somewhere different for a little while. Another state maybe? More like another state of mind. I feel like I have a million things I need to stop and think about, but they are just external to me. I need to go somewhere where I can reach out, grab those thoughts, and pull them inside so that I can deal with them. They are ideas, beliefs, concerns, whatever that belong inside me, and I'm not quite sure what it is that is inside me right now. Nothing, maybe. Futility. And I don't like it. Everything feels like a chaotic mess.

This is what I want to do. You know that part in Big Fish when Edward Bloom is at the circus and he sees the woman he will love forever and time basically stops? He's walking toward her, and there happens to be some popcorn hanging in the air and he pushes some of it away? I want time to stop like that and let me move some things around. I don't really want to change things, I just want to rearrange them. Or at least look at them long enough to understand what's going on around me. But just like in Big Fish, after time starts again, it speeds up to make up for that lost time, and by then, I would just be confused again.

Maybe that whole analogy made no sense whatsoever. Besides its impossibility, it really wouldn't work anyway. But it's just the feeling I get. Kinda like being in a circus. So many things going on at once. Maybe if I could just see that one thing that I will love forever, time will stop long enough to sort things out, and then it'll all be okay.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

too much computer

I have successfully wasted most of my day. Well, I've actually spent waaay too much time on the massive undertaking that I will publishing here on October 22. Okay, maybe it's not a massive undertaking, but it will all in all take quite a bit of time to compile and compose. I happened to choose to make some of that time today. When I should have been working on the research paper that is due on Tuesday. I have not even decided what I'm going to research, much less begun to research. That's just the first of two 5-8 page papers that I need to write over the next eighteen days. Yay.

What also really needs to happen is this: house cleaning. Well, just doing the dishes would be a good idea. I have no clean glasses, spoons, or forks. And I should also take the trash out. Yeesh.

Here in a couple hours, I'll be going to Justin's band's show. It's sponsored by Students for Social Justice. After having seen The Weather Underground last night at Cinema International, I'm afraid the show might turn into an anti-war hippie rebellion ending in violent protest. The things I do for my friends.

Okay, so I think I'm going to do some of that house cleaning business. I've sat in front of this computer long enough today.

Friday, October 01, 2004

searching for my lost (or first) shaker of salt

Okay, people. I know how much you'd love to see me drunk, but the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim. You know I'm not the biggest proponent of drinking, and I know that my will power is so tiny that if I ever started drinking, I might never stop.

I'm incredibly sick to my stomach. But I'm pretty sure I know why. You see, last night at about 9:30, I got the biggest hankering for fudge pie. The recipe came from that crappy cookbook I bought this summer when I thought I was going to be Little Susie Homemaker. Well, this recipe, at least, was golden. The problem was, though, that I had managed for all of my vanilla extract to empty itself in the bottom of my cabinet. So, succumbing to this persistent craving, I went to WalMart to stock up. I came home and made the thing, but it's supposed to refrigerate over night. That meant fudge pie for breakfast. It was good about an hour ago, but now, all I can say is bleh.

Yay. October is here. I celebrated by donning my first hoodie. October is quite the month of celebration--and not just my birthday. Two very important anniversaries are this month. And it just so happens they are on the same day. October 22 is the one year anniversary of the B-Unit. It is also the anniversary (or would birthday be more appropriate?) of this here blog. Don't be confused. The name and address have changed since then, but it is the same blog. It just had an identity crisis. Ooh, and I just had a fun idea for how to celebrate the past year of blogdom for me. Okay, you might not think it's fun, but I do. Let's see if I decide to roll with that idea when October 22 rolls around. And as always, it's a celebratory event when another month gets added to my archives list. I really don't know why that excites me so much, but it sure does. But my question is this: Where did September go?

Whoa, some lady just walked through the lab, and she was wearing that same perfume that Ms. (Mrs.?) Blackburn wore. Kindergarten will always haunt me.

*deer in the headlight look* She's back. The crazy lady's back. After a week of freedom. After a week of assuming she wouldn't come back. She's back. But I'm going to be positive. Maybe she is miraculously reformed. And again, I see many alcoholic beverages looming in my future. Oh, the temptation. Oh, the temptation.