Like Carrie from Sex and the City...I recap my day by typing up a journal entry at 12:30 am.

Coming home from the cleaning products section of the grocery store at exactly 12:12 am, I'm eager to get started on the bathroom, the kitchen, and whatever else I can find to tidy up and clean. I have my new green products spray cleaner, extra sponges, and new paper towels. I get to the bathroom, finish the quick little cleaning it needs, then head back to my room....and plop down on my bed.

The thought of cleaning a community space excites me. I like doing dishes...(a new development) because I know that my roommates like to come home to a clean sink. Cleaning the bathroom...I mean...I wasn't able to do much because it was clean already, but, who doesn't like to come home to a clean bathroom? Who doesn't need a clean bathroom, actually? When I return to my own room, however, a different feeling settles over me. I try to coax myself to treat me as nicely as I try to treat others, but that proverbial horoscope wisdom doesn't last as long as I might like it to. I don't want to do work for myself. I don't want to. This is my problem, I've discovered. This is why I need a career goal in mind. Not necessarily because I need to know my five year plan and have every step mapped out, but because I need assurance that I'll actually be doing tangible THINGS for others and that I'll be able to see the results of that. Teaching was something I could latch onto and be like "hey, I'll be able to witness myself helping kids, kids will know me, every day will be....rewarding." Saying, "I might do something in art," is so vague, it's almost mind-numbing if you consider the scope of what that could be, not to mention terrifying when you look at alumni from art schools that are now just working for a simple branding company (gosh forbid one for cleaning products like the ones I just sifted through for a good hour while the stock boys looked on in confusion).

It's not that I don't believe in the work that I'm doing here. Or, the "process," I'm not sure if taking a couple of classes and spending most of my time wandering and pondering can be considered "work." I am enjoying art so much. Enjoying treating myself to new colored pencils. To a canvas. To a new tube of paint. I'm also being more materialistic, and more wrapped up in my own head....(have you noticed?) But since I am so separate from the rest of the world, currently, only seeing a few people and not my usual 1000 per day, I find myself enjoying the solitude but longing to create, to make an impact, for heaven's sake to come down here and BLOG at least instead of playing Xbox or watching American Pie 2!

Isn't that everyone's longing, though? To leave something behind in this world? To leave a mark, because we are impermanent and so we long to create something permanent? A legacy, a masterpiece, a legend, a history?

I have a thirst for a lot. I want to create art because I want to say something. Being around so many "liberals" or at least similar people to me on shallow levels at college, it's like, I don't so much feel my voice is completely unique but yet.....there is something there, you know? I think the space I occupy as a human being IS unique. I don't think there are that many people out there who are actually like me. And I think that's worth something.

Unsticky Resolutions

So. It's been awhile since my last blog post, though I promised myself that this (blogging regularly) would be a New Year's resolution that would stick. It's the start of my second month here in Columbus. I do not at all regret taking time off to explore my true interests and to take a break from large loads of work. Knowing I'm missing out on a semester with friends and friendly, familiar faces is hard but knowing I'll be back in the fall is a great form of security.

I ended up dropping my intense design course, so now I have the one Figure Drawing course until the middle of March. When the middle of March hits, I will begin an online 5-credit intensive Spanish course, and a course at OSU for beginning design principles. I'm happy with the switch. This means that I will be occupied with two 5-credit classes from March until June. On the very first day of June, I will be leaving to prepare to go to Brazil. Brazil will last for one month, then I will travel around South America for a bit. After that, I'll return to Columbus for the last month and a half, then move back into my house at MSU.

My Figure Drawing course is fantastic. It's everything I want art to be. Relaxed, intense, inspiring, natural, beautiful. I love studying the human figure. Actually, I thought it might be boring to like study anatomy and look up anatomy books and try to figure out how to draw muscle of the body...now, I feel, what could be better? Though people are all different shapes and sizes, the actual form of muscles never change and the general composition of the body, so there are ways to improve at particular body parts, or the like. I like the idea of that kind of mastery. Or aiming at it.

Officially, I have declared my majors and have mapped out a plan. It sounds silly, but last night when I couldn't sleep after driving back to Cbus from MSU, at first I was watching tv programs I've never seen before but secretely been curious about--(Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab, anyone?), but also, those ended and became mush or something and there was suddenly nothing on but infomercials and I stumbled across one for Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker and educator. I felt like--even though you have to pay 19.95 to actually get the deets--this quenched my thirst. Tell me, Tony! I wanted to yell out, though there were two people already asleep in this apartment, plus a hyperactive cat. Tell me how to improve my life!

Well, he did. Maybe I squeezed the already-squeezed orange to get out as much juice as possible, but hey. NOW, I want to change! No, I mean, really. I want to make a plan and stick to it. I want to accept that uncertainty exists but still make decisions anyway! So I've made decisions. No to Ecuador currently, yes to Brazil. Yes to going to OSU for a quarter. Yes to taking Spanish online. No to getting an internship right now. Yes to staying in Columbus until school starts in the fall. Finally, I have actually declared my second major as interdisciplinary humanities. This allows me to get credit for all the English courses I've already taken, credit for the public affairs classes in a new way, and finally, the ability to take art courses as part of my major. Aka, the perfect way to complete my glob of randomness in an organized fashion! My diploma will be two-fold. First, a traditional public affairs degree, and then another in art, english, and public affairs. In addition, this will allow me to work toward the specialization in design that I've always wanted. It may not prepare me directly, but my interests are so scattered and my experience so all over the place that it's obvious that I don't want to be funnelled down a particular tunnel anyway. Law school? (not really though)Grad school? Becoming a teacher in Teach for America? Volunteering abroad? Whatever! All are options.

I'm finding that the best, the very best advice I've ever gotten is "Be Yourself." No one else CAN be you. You already know who "you" "are," and you just have to tune into that and believe that you can't help yourself unless you just go along with what you already are.