Emerging Slowly From the Cave...or how it felt to leave my dorm this morning.

So at least four people asked me why I was so happy today. I've decided that my mood is ENTIRELY too dependent on the weather. I need to work on that. You'd think this would have occurred to me before, as Michigan weather is not known for being kind...but maybe I've just never been this sick of cold weather before. Either way, I've decided I'm going to find something to be happy about every day for the rest of this week. Since the nice weather isn't supposed to last, this might become challenging, especially since my class work load this week is a killer, but I am determined. If I really get in a slump, I can always just read the paper or watch the news...somehow I always come away from that both extremely horrified and incredibly relieved for my life.

:)

So my sound poetry prof overheard me complaining this afternoon that we had to be in class instead of outside enjoying the weather...so she made me write a love poem to the class; basically outlining why I love the class so much. It was slightly horrifying; the poem was very very horrible, which is I guess what makes it funny. Tim now wants me to write a satirical love poem, one he can give his gf on valentines day. I am now very incredulous and suspicious about the function (dysfunction) of that relationship...

Meetings, meetings meetings...I've made a discovery this week. I hold Elizabeth Bennett as my all-time favorite Austen heroine...and this week has made me realize another aspect of why that is. Elizabeth is quite aware of - and deft - at playing the social games; small talk, posturing, basically standing around and talking about absolutely nothing. She plays this game to a point, but simply can't help but point out the ridiculousness of it all. I admire that so much...I feel like I waste so much time sitting around talking about nothing, or listening to others talk about nothing. It's so frustrating...I get these incredibly strong urges to suddenly say something completely inappropriate. My family is forced to listen to these outbursts at home, when I'm in the mood, or just bored...but I don't often give into this anywhere else. I guess it's the fear that I'll sabotage myself; totally ruin my image and therefore my future success. Stupid. So I've now decided it's unreasonable for society to force me to squelch my inner genius and wit, simply for image and appropriateness.

:D


So as I was waiting for a nurse to become available to take my blood last Wednesday, I got into a rather fascinating conversation about peanut butter with a fellow donor sitting one chair away. Suffice it to say, I was a fan, and he was not. I don't remember how this conversation began, but it was extremely random and hilarious. I simply don't understand the mind that is not completely enthralled with pb, and this guy seemed equally confused about the mind that is. I hope I helped him come to some kind of understanding...but I doubt it. I think he's one of those unfortunate individuals who will never be able to rid themselves of their unnatural predisposition against pb. Well, I can only try to save them - the rest is out of my hands.

the guilt of the well-meaning but uncommitted...

People. It's hilarious that the one direction of my life from which flows some of my greatest joys is also the source of my greatest trials...

So last Thursday one of my classmates realized that since our poetry class got canceled, I was going to have to sit in the hall for over an hour to wait for my night class. So this friend decided to stay and keep me company. For an HOUR. It was possibly one of the sweetest things anyone has done for me. The completely awesome thing: he writes movie reviews for our school paper, so he and I literally spent the entire time talking about movies, our favorite actors and Hollywood's strange, rigid idea of beauty...and also how Alan Rickman is one of the great underrated actors of his time. It was simply a blast.

Yesterday, however, I was the recipient of a bunch of snide comments in my Avant-Garde literature class from a group of "bohemian" self-love type people who've decided the class belongs to them.

My conclusion: people are great, but sometimes they also suck. I guess that makes sense, since that is also a good description of myself...when I am able to think about myself objectively, anyway... ;)

Headed home this weekend, to celebrate Lucy's birthday, as well as simply my family in general. I tried to explain to Kody yesterday about how I feel about my family, and he finally made this really hilarious comment: "You know Linz, you tell me you've never been in love before...but do you realize that's what it sounds like when you talk about them?" It's so funny, because it's so true in a way...I love my mom, my sisters and my bro's family with so much of me. I really can't imagine feeling the same amount for anyone else...even if he was the most perfect guy out there. (Which, let's face it, the perfect guy would annoy the crap out of me anyway...)

Along that vein...I was considering yesterday as I was reading the strange combination of Austen's Northanger Abbey and Flaubert's Madame Bovary that as a young 20's woman, I'm something of a quandary. Everything about my life: my childhood, the example(s) I had growing up, the training I've received from my sisters and my mother - everything has prepared me for the eventuality of marriage and children. Yet every time I consider that life, I am filled with a strange dissatisfaction. I realized yesterday as I was picturing that life - my life like that - it's just not what I want, at least right now. I realize that may change, but the idea of being at home, running a home and raising my children alone while my husband works eight, nine hour days, five or six days a week is simply not how I want to spend the majority of my life. I feel like I have been made for something different. Not something better, or worse, just something different. Sometimes I think that is why God created me so autonomous; why I hardly ever feel lonely, even when it's just Him and I. I am contented alone, in a way that I think most people aren't. But as people keep telling me, this may change, and soon I will probably be filled with the same urge to find someone to share my life - and children - with that everyone else in their twenties seems to feel. Then again...maybe not.

the state of being bummed and psyched at the same time....

Christmas break was...well, practically perfect in every way. :D

I got to:

-Ice-skate
-go hiking in a foot of snow
-sledding!!
-shop numerous times w/ many different peeps
-eat tons and tons of amazingly awesome food prepared by Mom and my sisters
-go on a mini road trip
and best of all:
-spend Christmas and New Years with those I love more than anything else in the whole world.

It was difficult at times to realize in those occasional moments of startling perception that I was experiencing the holidays in the house of my growing up years for the last time. Out of all my family, I love change the most, and even I felt a sort of grief at the idea of losing such an important piece of my life. But we spent as much time as we could filling it with as many positive memories as we could cram into three weeks.

Sometimes I feel so unbelievably blessed, I am filled with a sort of fear that God is preparing me for unbelievable hardship. But in the moments that I am surrounded by the ones I love so much, and realize how much I am loved, I believe that as long as I can hold onto that, I can make it through anything.

And now, to escape the growing maudlin... ;)

Despite how hard it was to leave home today, I am filled with a growing excitement about this semester. It is shaping up to be completely crazy, but at this moment, I am filled with illogical optimism.

I'm okay with that.

:)

school is out: let the mayhem begin!!

I'm sick.

Actually very, very sick. But perversely, I could not be happier...this Plague's onset was the day after I took my last final, so really, who am I to complain?

:D

Still trying to adjust to life without classes...hopefully this will happen before I go back to classes in the beginning of January.

So I have an INFINITE number of fun things I want to do over break...now it's just a waiting game to get healthy, then the MAD FUN can commence!!

end of semester: triumph, or my ultimate doom? :O

So this will probably be my last post before the end of the semester. Even writing that I cannot seem to grasp the concept that Fall is almost over. And it really should seem real, because it is FRICKIN COLD outside!!! :( If only there was a lot of pretty snow on the ground to make the cold seem worth all the trouble. ::sigh:: Whatev.

Anyway, so my prof told me Wednesday that she wants to nominate me to present a selection of my work in her class at an Undergraduate Symposium in March. To over 150 faculty and students.

?!?!?!

I am of course highly flattered, completely overwhelmed, and insanely terrified. I actually normally relish public speaking...I typically don't even get nervous, and I really do enjoy entertaining or informing people. (Or maybe I am just an attention junkie. :D ) But THIS seems WAY over my pay grade. But overall, I am very VERY psyched that my prof feels my work is "outstanding in its field," and that she's willing to nominate me for something like this. Maybe she's actually nuts or something. :)

So Thanksgiving...it was very very weird.

Positives:
*I got to hang w/ Mom's extended family in Chicago, the side of the family with about 60 people in it. Which is always fun.
*We got to ride the El into the city Thursday morning to watch my cousin Jordan play in the Chicago Thanksgiving parade. That was really fun, though really freezing.
*I got to eat tons and TONS of good, homecooked food. It was kind of like what I imagine heaven is like.
*Mom, Gina, Heather, Megan, Shelby and I got to go to the Shedd Aquarium. Which was totally awesome.
*I organized a dance party with a drinks bar (non-alcoholic of course) in my uncle's basement on Friday night. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, doing the cha-cha slide with my cousins, aunts and uncles.

Negatives:
*Since Dad, Mom, Megs and Shelby are moving to Oregon, there is talk circulating in the extended family that we will not be getting together for reunions very often anymore.
*Megan and Shelby got the flu over the weekend, so I hardly got to hang out with them. This had me highly upset, as I was just as excited to see them as I was my cousins I haven't seen since the wedding in August.
*I had to deal with a lot of crap from certain HIGHLY conservative members of the extended family about getting the dance party together, especially because some of the music I played was non-Christian, I organized a mixed drinks bar, and I encouraged dancing. (Despite the fact that the drinks were non-alcoholic, all the non-Christian music was VERY clean, and because it was all family, there was absolutely NO grinding or dirty dancing.)

::sigh:: I really do respect my mom's side of the family, but sometimes I wish they'd just loosen up a bit. I am torn in two when I have on the one hand aunts and uncles criticizing me for trying to "recreate the worldly atmosphere of clubbing," and on the other hand cousins telling me that the dance party was the most fun thing we've ever done together. Ever. It was a good reminder though that despite how hard I may try, it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to please everyone. And if my organizing this dance party was such a huge shock to everyone (after all, aren't I a good Christian girl, which means I don't dance, don't drink, and don't go clubbing??) then maybe my aunts and uncles don't know me as well as they think they do.

So I am ready for some serious Christmasing. The music, the cookies, late-night Monopoly and Scrabble with Christmas tunes playing in the background and snow on the ground...BRING ON CHRISTMAS BREAK!!!! :D

what happens when you dive in WITHOUT the deep breath first...

I miss writing. The great irony is that I am doing nothing but writing right now...but academic writing and decompression writing are two wildly different processes. So I feel justified (though slightly silly) in stating that I miss writing.

Clint is constantly on my mind right now...it's funny how you can forget how much you care about people after long periods apart, only to be reminded very suddenly when something happens. All of the Bortons are so special...I hope he pulls out of this soon. I think my Thanksgiving wish (and yes, there is such a thing) this year will be that the Bortons won't have to spend Thanksgiving in a hospital.

So the most incredible opportunity fell into my lap today...well, more like my English professor thrust it in my face and wouldn't let me leave (literally, she blocked the door) before I agreed to pursue it. I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I can't help, much like Hugh Laurie, but to be "highly suspicious of success." But even if this doesn't work out, I will always have the knowledge that my prof thought I was good enough, and deserved this opportunity. That I know I will NEVER forget.

So me and my two best buddies in mythology were up until the wee hours of the morning last night writing our stupid mythology term paper. We were supposed to peer edit them in class today, but the three of us could not think or talk straight. We kept bursting into uncontrollable laughter for no reason (although Dawn did give us plenty of reason with her antics, come to think of it.
Dawn + three hours of sleep + three cups of coffee = an unforgettable experience.)

Hehe.

Anyway, after I realized I'd misspelled "reason" as "reeson" on my edit worksheet, I finally admitted to myself that I was simply not going to be accomplishing anything useful today. Then I remembered that I had tutoring all evening, plus two papers to finish before tomorrow. And college just does not provide a lot of leeway for nervous breakdowns. :)

So I have never been more ready for the holidays. I'm listening to Christmas music constantly, daydreaming about Christmas shopping (I know! ME!!) and mentally creating a list of crazy fun things I want to do over Christmas break w/ my favorite peeps. I wonder if this sentimentality is coming from the fact that I know my family will shortly be heading in opposite directions, simply a result of me getting older, or my miserably pathetic craving of home cooked meals. Whichever it is, bring on the holidays, baby.

:D

what to do when: your shoes trip without your consent, your trash can growls, a guy accidentally knocks you over, and other life-altering events...

My life is highly improbable. I've decided that if I ever attempted to publish my memoirs, no one would believe a single word of it. Would probably be fun to write anyway though... :D

So...I BOUGHT 2 TICKETS FOR HEATHER AND I TO SEE "THE LION KING" AT THE WHARTON IN MARCH THIS MORNING!!!!!! I'm just a little psyched. I feel a little bad for calling Heather in the middle of her work day and blabbering on and on about how excited I am, but sometimes you just gotta barrel through other people's stringent work ethics for their own good. (I shudder to think of what she'd have missed out on if I HADN'T called - tragic stuff that, totally tragic.)

Looked out my window last night to see snow flurries, and promptly turned on Christmas music for the first time this year. Gotta love the holiday season!! (That is, until the below freezing temperatures become the norm, shopping starts to feel like civil warfare, driving becomes an extreme sport...but we won't dwell on all that now!!) :D I really do love this time of year though (mostly, anyway)...people change; I feel like generally they become more friendly, more open, more focused on what they hold as important. If nothing else, it's nice to feel like the moment you're in is special. That and family, home, and Jesus is what Thanksgiving and Christmas are colored with for me.

So Tim played a horrible trick on me today...it all started with the class that meets in our room before our English class being canceled this morning. Now Tim likes to mock me because every day I'm the first one to class - it's just a product of my neurotic fear of being late, which I don't find particularly funny, but he thinks it's quite hilarious. So anyway, I walk up to our classroom this morning to find the lights off and the door closed...I was surprised, but just figured (correctly) the class before ours had been canceled. So I walk up and try the door, and find it unlocked. I push it open and suddenly Tim jumps out at me screaming "I GOT HERE FIRST!!!!!!" I jumped (according to Tim, mind you, and he lies) about ten feet in the air and yelled "Holy MOTHER!" Suffice it to say, I refused to speak to him again until he stopped laughing and apologized, which took the rest of the class period. And now the entire class (thanks to Tim's INCREDIBLY big mouth) knows like two of my biggest fears: a) being late, and b) getting startled. It's a good thing (esp. for Tim) that I have a healthy sense of humor, or I would never make it through the day.