how to live inside a completely terrific day...

I think today and yesterday are going to be my absolutely favorite days of this semester. These two days are going to be the only thing about this school term I'll remember. In ten years when people ask me about this year at college, these two days are going to be what I'll talk about. It's almost hilarious - nothing hugely life-altering happened, but the culmination of several really important things suddenly came together, and I'm right now totally and completely excited about life. I love that feeling. Almost as much as I love writing. I don't think I realized until last week, thursday night, how much I've been doubting lately my academic path. Having actually written only one thing I'm really proud of in the past year has been really hard. It's made me question whether what I've always thought was inside me is really there. But writing this latest short story for my fiction class has uncorked an incredible flow of words and excitement that I haven't felt in a really long time. Suddenly I'm remembering just how much I want to say, and how much I haven't said yet. Sometimes I feel trapped, because even when I have nothing inside me, I still feel this compulsion to write. But bottom line: it's not about whether I can write or can't write. It's about the fact that I have to write, even if I'm the only one who is ever changed by it.


Wow. I cannot believe how melodramatic the above is. :D ANYWAY, only one more week until The Lion King, and oddly enough, I think I'm just as psyched about hanging out with Heather and the fam as I am about that. I was talking to Heather the other day about my friends here, and how I really do love them...but sometimes I miss not having to try so hard. It's like even simple conversation is so much more complicated when you're talking to someone who's only known you for a year. Especially compared to talking to people who've known you your whole life. With them, you have your own language, one that often doesn't even require words. That might be what I miss about home most of all. (Besides real food, that is...)

So my friend in my fiction class walked out with me last thursday night to ask me if I like Patrick. ????? He is a friend of mine in the class that I know from last semester, that sits by me. He and I are mutually aware of our incompatibility, something that's allowed us to hang out without any awkwardness (something that's suddenly gotten much harder for me in general than in high school, go figure). But apparently our "mixed signals" are confusing our other friends in the class. I've decided that there's been relatively little drama in the class so far, and people are getting bored and desperate. I also think that perhaps Stephanie likes Patrick. But this is all conjecture...unfortunately I am rarely wrong about this stuff. Why can't we all just be grown-ups and leave high school where it belongs - in high school?! ::sigh. I think I'm getting too old for this. :)

bad breath, boring socks and misplaced flip flops...

So I am dangerously close to getting used to this good weather...I even decided to pull out my flip flops this morning. Right up until I couldn't find them. You'd think my dorm room was too small to really lose anything...but apparently my ingenuity knows no bounds.

:D

Actually shared something in my Avant Garde class today...and annoyed everyone. To be honest, it was kind of fun...I am so fed up with the arrogance that I'm ready to start handing out cards for a "Superiority Complexes Anonymous" group. Hehe. Seriously though...I tend to be academically minded myself, and probably occasionally stray into murky waters where alienating people in conversations is concerned...but if I ever get so self-important in my own knowledge that I am completely insufferable to be around, I hope someone will shoot me. I don't think knowledge is something you wave around, just to impress or make yourself feel better...I believe it's supposed to serve a purpose. Sometimes I feel like (especially in some of my higher level classes) classmates aren't here to learn as much as they're here to show off what they already know. It makes me wanna tattoo my forehead: "Sit down, shut up, and LISTEN!" :)

Anyway...enough ranting. So I realized yesterday that somehow in the midst of all my anxiety about being sick of school...I found my momentum again. I'm about caught up in all my classes, and starting to plan for my end-of-semester projects and papers. Not sure when this occurred, but I feel like I finally have enough academic drive to push myself through these last five weeks of school...but I guess we'll just have to see what happens...

"the perfect day...

...would definitely begin with a sunrise."

:)

Heard someone say this today. I love the idea that we can choose to acknowledge a sunrise or sunset; that just because it may be there every day doesn't mean that it's a reality for us. I have truly experienced only a handful of sunrises and sunsets...when I think about it, it's amazing how many I've missed. I've decided I'm going to pay attention to a sunrise (yikes!!) and a sunset at least once a week from now on.

Totally random - watched a random dude get cuffed and taken into custody by the library this afternoon...I couldn't stop imagining the story behind it. He was well-dressed and incredibly polite to the cop, which totally cracked me up...I overheard him asking about the cop's day; if he'd been able to enjoy the weather at all. ????? I think I've seen too many movies...I expect every scene like this to turn into something out of Antoine Fuqua's "Training Day"...


So I love how everyone is Irish today. Despite knowing less than nothing about the culture or the history behind the holiday, and despite the fact that they're less than 1/16th Irish. People are so hilarious. I almost wore orange today just to be obstinate and secure in my lack of Irish heritage, but decided I didn't want to get yelled at on such a beautiful day...

sleepless night: check. Seven-page paper: check. One really REALLY long day ahead: double check.

Already can't wait for today to be over. I've decided (in the past five minutes) that if Kody isn't at my post-modern lit class, I am just walking away. (Not really cause I'm totally anal about missing class, but it feels good to emptily threaten...) ;)

Listening to sarah bareilles' "City Lights." Makes me want to get into my car and head for the first "real" big city I can find. At precisely this moment, I want nothing more than to get lost in a really, really big crowd. There's something so comforting, so freeing about that moment when you become indistinguishable from the masses. And now I'm rambling...

Off to a day filled with classes, curses (prof. bruss ;)) and tutoring...

exhaustion on a Sunday night = impending disaster...

So I had SO much FUN this weekend! To celebrate Shelby's birthday, they all came down to visit me...we did shopping, lunch (where we embarrassed Shelby to death by having the Applebee's employees sing to her) and then a concert to finish the night. It was such a blast...and now I'm completely exhausted going into a semi-crazy week. :S It was however, definitely worth it.

In the midst of writing a paper about Orlando...writing a paper on the book is proving much MUCH easier than prepping/giving a group presentation on the book. Must be because papers are strictly a one-man (or one-woman) op, whereas with presentations you have to factor in other group members plus an entire class worth of people who can potentially make the project a horror show. ::sigh:: Whoever submitted the idea to colleges that group projects were a great way to prepare students for the realities of the real world/workplace should be SHOT. (For some reason I don't think I'm quite over the trauma of last week...;D )


Went for a walk tonight as the weather was so beautiful. I intended to be out for only a half hour, but by the time I actually zoned back into the world, it'd been an hour-and-a-half and I'd walked around the entire main campus twice. I think I've missed walking...

What? FREEDOM?! What is this, what does it do, and what does it mean?!?!

So my school week is FINALLY over. Three presentations later and my brain is fried, I am running alarmingly low on sleep, a surprising amount of people are sick of hearing me talk, but most importantly: NO MORE PRESENTATIONS ALL SEMESTER!!!! Technically this isn't true, as my sound poetry class requires me to perform a piece in class by the end of the semester, but that to me is an entirely different thing.

Ran into Jas today...it was very much the happy accident. I really miss her...she is a kindred spirit in that she and I have an alarmingly similar sense of humor. Which means basically that we crack each other, and ourselves, up constantly when we're together. It's great fun. I miss her for other reasons though...who else braves haunted houses with me, constantly needles me about getting a tattoo, and steals my day planner to doodle and write little notes like: "brush hair. take deep breath. scream. run from campus security. remember that life as we know it will not collapse if you forget an assignment, show up late, or let someone down." Wow, does she know me well...

So I went to the student bookstore this afternoon to kill some time, (I'd intended to go for a walk, but got about fifty feet and decided it was WAAAY too stinking cold) and one of the employees, a guy, comes up to me and starts chatting me up. He asks, "What can I do for you? Looking for anything? Want a tour? I actually give PRIVATE tours free of charge..." I actually laughed, I'm ashamed to say, despite the awfulness of the line. We chat for a little bit, and I finally come out and ask him, "Are you really bored?" The "Mr. Charming" front suddenly slips off like a skin, and he starts describing the rather impressive extent of his boredom. Apparently they had practically no traffic in there today, a combination of the weather, the day of the week and the point of the semester. So I let him give me a mini tour of the bookstore that I've spent so much time in over the past year, I know probably as well as him. :D The things people will do on a boring Thursday afternoon...


So tomorrow is clean-my-room, do-my-laundry and run-errands day since I'm gonna be busy all day Saturday, which is the day I usually accomplish all of the above. Strangely enough, the boring, mundane nature of the tasks I'm going to be doing tomorrow has me oddly excited. I think that's a reflection on just how insanely busy I've been...when laundry day gets me all giddy, you know I'm in serious trouble...

What up w/ the strange, the alien throbbing in my head? Oh, wait, that's my brain...

So I've decided I deserve some MAJOR kudos for not having run away yet. It is seriously taking every bit of my self-control just to wake up every morning, go to class, tutor, go to study groups, go back to my dorm, study some more, and go to bed, knowing I'll be doing it all over again the next day. Thank God for the days my routine gets mixed up a bit. I really didn't believe I'd be one to fall prey to "senioritis," but I am positively ITCHING to get away from school right now...

Went to a sound performance the other day given by a professor/performer from New York...he played, get this: a Laotian MOUTH ORGAN. It was possibly the coolest thing I've seen/heard all semester. It was pretty much the only part of his presentation that impressed me, but I was pretty stinkin impressed. Unfortunately I've found it nearly impossible to describe said instrument to friends and family...I've decided that only proves my theory that the coolest things in life defy explanation. (We'll go with that, rather than I'm just really lazy in the brain).


So Sunday night as part of my sound poetry class I performed a poem on "Eagle Radio," my campus' radio station. It was an incredibly surreal, fun experience. My prof had a lot of fun messing around with me; she tried getting me worked up about it, but I was too distracted by the extremely cool mic and headset and all the complicated button thingies...so yeah, I didn't get nervous which was nice, and I had a lot of fun performing one of my new favorite poems: Michael Palmer's "Red, Yellow, Blue". I think I unconsciously chose that poem because there's a line that talks about "the rain that never ends..." - I don't know what's going on, but at least here in Ypsi it WILL NOT STOP RAINING!!!! I'm seriously going stir crazy...the other night I got so fed up with being constantly stuck inside that I went for a walk despite the rain...and ended up freezing cold and completely happy.:D