First thing I remember.

This title of this entry is in honor of the realization I had about the parallel structure of Paul Simon's "Late in the Evening" and Better than Ezra's "Recognize." Not that it's earth-shattering. It's just that I realized it all of a sudden and was surprised at how I had missed it for so long.

To be honest, the only reason I'm checking in here is to say that I've been feeling as intense need to be creative. Maybe it has something to do with spring. I've made a purse, which is what I am most proud of. I've redesigned this blog thing. Kinda. I've been shooting some pictures. I feel like busting out my watercolors. To paint what, I'm not sure.

The good question, though, is why the heck am I sitting in the library?

Maybe it's because it looks like Harry Potter could live there.

Words cannot describe how much I adore this house. From the outside, that is. I'm sure if I ever saw the inside, the whole thing would be demystified. It belongs to the university, and it's the Nash House, whatever that means. I have no idea. I almost plough over pedestrians every time I drive down 16th because I am so enchanted by this house and I fail to pay attention to my driving. But it's just so, mm, cottagey? I just think it's adorable. So today when I was taking a different route home from a meeting at Alexander Hall, I rummaged through my bag and found my camera so that I could take a picture. Maybe now pedestrians won't be in so much danger. But I doubt it.

Poem in October

Get ready

This camera -- or one similar -- with be mine come this weekend. It will be nice to have a good digital back in my hands. Oh, the places we will go.

I miss my digital camera.

A lot.

Too many things left to be unsaid

So, I'm Mexico. It's true.

Today, instead of tagging along with some Carhartt folks, I stayed in bed kind of late. (By "kind of late" I mean late enough for the maid to ask me if I was sick. Mm, no. Just lazy.) I don't have the means -- or the balls, honestly -- to meander about the city by myself, so sleep seemed like the best answer. I'm getting picked up at 1:00 so I can go sit in on five hours' worth of Spanish and English classes. The English teacher is the craziest Grammar Nazi known to man. During his smoke break yesterday, we debated the pretentiousness of impeccable grammar and the differences between American and Canadian English. My kind of fun. Things: So far, so good.

Along the lines of language: Holly had mentioned the author Bill Bryson to me a while back. Well, during my most recent tryst with Barnes & Noble, this guy's name was spied out of the corner of my eye in the philosophy section. With much interest indeed, I picked up one of his books called Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States. Oh, what a perfect pair, me and this book. I enjoy it so much that I even put in some quality reading time during the flight down here. That's saying something.

Rumor has it that I will finally have my car back when I return from this little jaunt. These two months without the Buick have been trying times. It will be nice to have it back.

Time for the shower, but before I go, I have a comment or two on the land of Mexico: Tell me, what is up with it being 70 degrees? I mean, I am eternally grateful, but something about this doesn't seem right. And the sky is big. I mean, huge. I had no idea how little the sky is at home. I hate to sound as cheesy as John in "3x5," but there are clouds and mountains for as far as the eye can see, and here, that's pretty dang far. But I do have my camera, so let's hope for some photos.

It's going around.

It seems all of my unnecessary technological comforts are crapping out on me.

The real disaster is the ol' digital camera. In my heart, I am unwilling to lay the Canon Powershot SD100 (aka Really Really Obsolete) Digital Elph to rest. Partially because I just re-upped my Flickr account. Apparently, I have dropped it or jabbed it with a sharp object in the LCD screen region. When I turn it on, it looks like digitally shattered glass. When Holly and I were at Nick's and I was getting ready to show her a picture on the camera, it took me a minute or so to realize that this wasn't a picture I had taken. Anyhow, the dismay is great. The seemingly nice four-year service plan I purchased does not indeed include accidental damage. So here I am. It can still take pictures I suppose, but fun stuff like aperture and shutter speed -- which I have just learned how to use in my photography class -- are now completely beyond my control. It's a sad day.

And now, my iPod is going through its first big crisis. Something about a corrupt file. It's pretending that I didn't just spend something like twenty minutes creating all new playlists. There's no music to be found on it, but interestingly enough, there is no free disk space either. So I'm downloading some God-Help-Me-Save-the-iPod application from the Apple website. I'm assuming this problem is recoverable.

I think I'm going to do some sort of burnt offering and spread the ashes around my laptop. Just in case.

Final thooought.

The end of Photography has arrived. Folks, I didn't think I was going to make it out alive. My feet killed me from standing in the dark room for eight hours (or more) at a time in order to print my pictures. I hated most of them. I had to drop extra cash for more paper on which to print my pictures. I was generally frustrated.

And then, last night at about 1:00 am, I finished. I mounted all my pictures on mat board (with precision, might I add), and I set all twelve of them up on the chalk tray to get a good look. And I was happy. I was actually pleased.

Then came the critique in class today. And guess what. The professor was pleased, too! I was quite proud, until after class. That's when I about had a heart attack. You know, in a good way. (If that's not contradictory, I don't know what is.) Proud isn't the word to describe how I felt after the professor used the word amazing to describe me and my photos. And then he suggested that if I got bored with my English and Spanish education studies, I should look into photography. I couldn't believe it.

And to think I was considering dropping the class after the third day.

Quick update.

Photography is crazy. I shot pictures all afternoon and evening yesterday. And then I went to the dark room, and all that developing jazz took me almost three hours. I'm not sure how well my pictures turned out, but it's looking bleak. I guess I'll find out this afternoon 'cause I'm going back here in a minute to print some pictures. We have eight prints with the theme of shadows due Friday. I bet it will take me today and tomorrow to get my prints done. 'Cause, you know, I have to figure in American Idol time.

Back in the habit

Like Sister Act 2. But this is probably just a phase, right? I'll get tired of blogging again and quit. Again.

Day One of photography. Not stressing yet. Today was pretty laid back. The big news is that I think I might've broken/sprained (more likely the second one) something in my foot. I was just walking down the steps to go into Fine Arts before class and my foot just did something funny. Nice omen, eh? Now I am limping around. Anyway, we went around campus and took pictures on a group roll of film. I think mine sucked. I did take a picture of a dead baby bird, though. That's gotta count for something. I mean, I probably contracted avian flu. Great. Look at all the sacrifices I'm making for the class. Breaking some bones, starting an epidemic... What more can one ask for?

I started a roll of film this weekend. I reckon I need to clear it off before class tomorrow, and I need some pre-highly-valuable-course-fee-film practice. So I'm going to drive around and snap some shots to make myself feel better about the photographic crap I produced today. I didn't perform well under the pressure of five of my classmates watching me take pictures with a camera I wasn't used to. Hopefully I can do better by myself.

On an unrelated note, grades come out over night. Oh, the anticipation.

I took some knock-off Claritin before class, and I'm feeling a bit spasmodic. Thank you, high school vocabulary.

Coming soon

One-and-twenty: In Memoriam and Fall break.

In the meantime, check out approximately 100 new photos from this weekend.

See you soon.

friday night write

I slept late today because I don't work on Fridays and my first class was cancelled. I got up at 9:25. That's what I call sleepin' in. Classes were fine. Two out of three let out at least twenty minutes early, so that was good.

I got a head-start to Paducah to get my passport application and fee turned in. I had loaded my guitar in the car, though I'm not sure why. Maybe I thought I'd find a bench at Noble Park, take my shoes off, put some flowers in my hair, and play socially-aware folk songs whilst letting birds alight on me. I don't know. It didn't happen because I ended up following the business loop from one end of town to the other and right on out of it--far far away from any hippie haven. I did make a mandatory stop in Calvert City to hang out with the sisterly family.

Tonight, I'm just chillin'. I've been playing some guitar (sans park benches, shoelessness, flowers, and birds), doing a bit of picking-up around the place, and contemplating doing something that might be considered advancement toward surviving this week. I have an insane amount of obligations for the coming week. Just on the surface, it's looking like three tests, a paper, a reading journal submission, and a booktalk. It's midterm already, isn't it?

Mom and Sissy and the Gang are coming to Murray tomorrow because Sissy's working a health fair thing at WalMart. Mom and I are going to attempt to keep Victoria and Kathryn alive throughout the five-hour duration. It should be an interesting (fun?) day.

Sissy hooked me up with some cough medicine stuff. I'm about to cough my head right off of my shoulders. I'm not sure what I've got, but something tells me it's similar to the pesky illness called bronchitis. I better go out to the car and get that bottle of codeine now.

I've been sparsely adding some pictures to my Flickr account. Long live Flickr. I love it. It is most definitely to place to go if you're looking for some photographs. I spent a vast majority of today looking up photos of Segovia and London with Tessa in advanced comp. I'm thinking of getting a premium Flickr account. But is it worth the investment. Ponder, ponder.

lovely

Today has been absolutely lovely. While walking to class this morning, I was filled with a sudden desire to read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I've never read it, but I knew that it matched the magical feeling I had.

Call me a geek. I don't care.

After class, I came home and began looking for a copy of the book to buy off the internet, but I wasn't sure I was getting the right edition from half.com, so I thought that maybe-just-maybe that used bookstore on 12th Street might have it. So I lit out in great hope. But they didn't have it. They did, however, have three Newbery Medal winners to add to my quickly-growing collection.

I have Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, and few days ago, I ordered The Giver by Lois Lowry and Missing May, which I read in junior high, by Cynthia Rylant. Today, I bought Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson, and a hardback copy of Crispin: The Cross of Lead, a rather new Newbery Medal winner, by Avi.

When will I read these? I have no idea. And I'm not really sure what my obsession with children's books is, but I think I'm trying to make up for my nearly bookless childhood. And I think children's literature has such a greatness that we don't usually comprehend as children and that we choose to ignore as adults. Plus, I have to do two book talks on Newbery Medal winning books this semester in Teaching Reading.

[Before you think of me as a deprived person--and maybe I am--let me tell you that my parents raised me well. The tradition of storytelling runs deep in my blood, as well as an insatiable curiosity. These are ingredients for the love that I have for reading and writing. And I did read as a child, just not as much as most of my book-loving peers. I'm a miracle, I suppose. Or more likely, a late-bloomer. But I am lucky. Most people who don't learn to love reading as a child never do. Child and adolescent literacy is so important. Hear the teacher?]

Alas, my search for The Wind in the Willows didn't cease, mind you. I knew that I would be able to find a copy at the Calloway County Library. And I did. There were several different editions, and to my excitement, they had the one with illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard. It has that wonderful Beatrix Potter pastoral feel. So I checked out my first book from that library. Thank you, Dr. Bolin.

Ignoring the cold and clinging to the beauty of the day, I went to the park to read. I settled in a sunny spot for a few pages, but it was just too chilly. So I closed the book (which was hitting this incredibly sappy spot I've been speaking of) and pulled out the camera. I liked to have killed myself--or atleast broken a bone or two--several times climbing and crawling about the creek. Let's just say I got a little muddy. And I'm washing my jeans right now. It was great, great fun. :-)