ch-ch-ch-changes !

i'm at work right now. which makes it the poifect time to blog. i feel like speaking in accents and tongues today, so work with me. this semester has actually brought a lot of good, new things in my life. i enjoyed my studies last semester, but they required so much constant effort that it laid down constant stress into my life. even though i still have a full schedule--and two part-time jobs--there is less of that in my life now and it's released quite a burden from me. i'm lucky enough to take one last english class this term, rounding out my "english minor." we'll call it that, unofficially, because what i major in makes sense to no one--including, sometimes, my advisers and peers. i say i'm lucky because this class is fantastic. it is called "the emergence of an american literary trend (?)" and examines the greats of American lit you typically associate with the American canon--Thoreau, Hawthorne, etc--but examines them with a broader lens and a more analytically-framed scope. for example, it's not pulling out the themes, characters, as you might in a high school classroom or introductory course, but questioning the broader implications for how the usual canon may represent American culture, society. in addition, the class takes into consideration criticism of these usually named "great" works and weighs the implications of these criticisms. in other words, this class is my wet dream.

sometimes i do feel that senior pull, where you know you're going to be done soon, and you're biding your time and finishing classes. but i also do feel that i am learning here and still growing here. i see east lansing through completely different eyes from when i was a freshman. it's so cliche--but it's so true. i used to be intimidated by the people and the size of campus and going downtown or going out--now it's just regular old east lansing. and i belong here or don't belong here as much as the next person.

i really appreciate the place that i'm at right now. it took so (so, so, so) much effort, but i ended up with two amazing majors that have allowed me to take basically all classes i've dreamed of. i've taken design, drawing, intro to english analysis, latin american studies, comparative cultural theory, spanish structure. people doubt me a lot--my major choices, rather--but i do believe they'll pan out in the end. for me, it's not about what it says on the transcript or the name of the bachelors degree i've completed--it's the classes i've taken, what i've gotten out of them, and how i've synthesized them together. and i seriously feel blessed to have been able to take so many great classes while in college. not everyone gets to do that.

i have also tried to spend a lot more time with my family. my sister graduates after this may also and will be going to college most likely out of state. it's just nice to spend time with family, too. i was away for most of last summer, for last spring semester, and most of this fall also. the winter break was a great, actual break where i refreshed and spent lots of time with family.

the next trip i have coming up--besides potential roadtrips--is my alternative spring break to Baltimore. i am getting a bit more excited about this because it is obviously closer than it was last fall. i'm glad to be able to do ASB one more time and participate in an organization like it again. it is just a week, but im fascinated to learn more about immigration. after my senior seminar paper last term, it's truly an issue where i feel i need to school myself, learn more, and participate more in the politics surrounding it.

s. t. t. p.

It's the end of fall semester. It couldn't be easily categorized as a "bumpy ride" but it hasn't been all smooth or happy sailing. It's winter break. It's the time in between. It's the time to sit down and realize what all went down this semester and why.

I was a senior in college this year and it felt pretty much right on target. Going out with friends, frequenting the local bars, getting to know what happy hours were where. Of course me being me throughout school I would constantly be asking myself in my inner dialogue "Is this right? What should I do? Should I do this? Should I do that?" Someone's gotta do something about this line of questioning. Obviously that someone needs to be me. Anyway, in that sense, this semester was like all the others. Never fully fitting into the college framework--I enjoy it, a lot, don't get me wrong--but never quite fitting in the hole for the peg. I didn't have a lot of time to myself, but I can't say it was all happy socializing either. School took a huge toll on me, but mostly my work outside of schoolwork did. It took me quite awhile to get used to my new job, and it ate up quite a bit of time.

We can't get better at ourselves without mistakes, so even though I've proven the conclusion again and again that its better to commit to less, do less, but with more quality (quality, not quantity in activity) I still apparently piled on the load for the fall. But you learn with age and with mistake.

It's weird thinking that soon I'll be done with this school. This is where I've spent four years, growing, embarrassing myself, learning, getting better or worse at being a student, enjoying, and all the other stuff. I think I feel pretty average about it. Not overly sentimental or weeping, but not booking the first train outta here either. Just a healthy kind of departure. I don't know where I'm heading next but I know that I'm okay with it.

My heart will win. That's what I really want to say. I guess to the outsider it sounds vague and sentimental in a bad way, but to me it means something a bit more specific. Maybe it's not the heart that I intend to say. Maybe it's the soul. My soul guides my career, it guides my reason for being in college, it guides my need for reflection and my need for new food for the soul. ....This is starting to sound like I'm writing this for Hallmark.

onward.

Every year up until this one, I've written a "special" (as i've deemed it) Christmas Eve entry in my blog. This year I didn't. This year's Christmas was different. Not bad different. Definitely not. Just different. I feel like I'm constantly learning these days. I think I needed a break somewhere in between all the intensity of this semester and never got one. It was constant work, and mostly constant stress. Now I'm finally destressing and its like I have to learn, literally, how to kick back and enjoy myself over a prolonged period of time. To be honest, I didn't do as well in school as I would have liked, but I think this was largely because I discovered a hindrance: i can't stand research. Like can't stand. I know there are some who just get a big hoot from it, and could sit and read and write all day--and maybe occasionally I feel this way. But I didn't feel that way at all this time around. It was like one giant chore where every page was a stretch haha. And there were quite. a few. pages.

I'm glad to have those courses behind me and to release myself from them. You have no idea how good it feels just to know I don't have to take those classes anymore. Anyway, enough talk about school, its really gotten boring. Sometime it just seems being a student takes over--especially being a student in this dang major. Something exciting that is coming up is the deadline for FEM. We are collecting submissions up until January 1st. Hopefully by then, we'll have enough submissions abound to print our issue. I'm excited to see what was submitted this year.

i'm sitting here
exploding across the page
exploding, in my own right
in my own life
And you could care less

So all of that work
Across fields
to bridge gaps
was just worth nothing, nothing, nothing

And I'll go forward alone
Best believe
I'll conquer whatever's in front me

reflexiones

Why do I never learn, or never teach myself so much that it sticks, the importance of me returning to write in my journal? It's like I never quite get it. It's important. That I come here to write. Writing, above all else to me, is the art form that speaks to me in creation and production. It's not just that I have a natural want to write, it's that it is a need. Expressing myself verbally and through typing or handwriting out my words allows me to stay sane and to organize my thoughts and to feel connected to the world. Otherwise I wander around disconnected. So am I finally coming to a conclusion? I have to have a career that allows me to write? Or am I affirming that at the end of the day, not every day but regularly, I have to remind myself to sit down and dammit write. I can't tell you and I gave up awhile ago trying to analyze career science and figure out exactly what is perfect and all of the miniscule details. I don't know at what point I became a go-with-the-flow but now I am one.

Here I sit, drinking pinot grigio and reflecting on the world and nothing feels better. This entire week I spent reading. Even though I feel I could write a 100 to 200 page paper on the general topic, I have not put a single extra sentence in my rough draft or begun a new draft to turn in as my final. That's okay with me. Anyway, this entire week I spent reading, and now I write. Now it's my turn to speak. I wonder if I couldn't be a researcher because of my experience with this project: one of frustration, constant frustration haha. I didn't expect it. I've written long research papers before and never has it felt quite like this. Anyway, a lot of my semester has revolved around reading books or websites or documents specifically for this project, so it's kind of hard to avoid talking about it. If I could go back, knowing what information is out there, I'm not sure I would have chose this as the one topic I would focus on for my senior seminar. But gotta roll with it, ya know?

I find myself simultaneously becoming stronger in my articulation of my career and academic purposes because I am clearer and more focused, and also becoming more resistant to various paths because I realize I couldn't last in them. What I am left with is ironically an offshot of the dilemma that began freshman year when I couldn't decide for the life of me if I wanted to devote to the arts and humanities, or still with the harder and colder social sciences. To go off and be an artist, or to enroll in masters programs in the social sciences? This will be something I'll have to figure out, but I just don't care about worrying anymore. I just wanna be a hippie and follow my bliss.
Lorsh I never thought I'd say that.

I think it's reflective of a larger theme. Not trying to force on other people a certain perspective that grates on theirs. You gotta meet them where they're at. And then go forward. I guess there are times where you need to propel yourself, and your view, regardless of the consequences. But lately that need hasn't cropped up.

I got some Thanksgiving text messages that warmed my heart. I am truly blessed. There's a bright future in front. All I have to do is believe.

"quote analysis"

is it any surprise...that here i am, in place of reading articles for coursework? Haha, of "course" not. (haha!) so, anyway, i do feel like writing though. it's not completely illegitimate that i'm here, ne? i like that my blog is not frequented publicly. it makes me think it's still somehow private, somehow shrouded in shawdow, yet wholly in a public space and slightly in your face, as well.

i'm thinking that we do live in a globalized world. i'm thinking that it does matter--all this technology, these new modes and methods, this lifestyle we have chosen. It's frenzied, is it not? i don't want to sign up to live on the next commune, and separate myself from modernity, but i want to get closer to some kind of inner vein.

Have you ever read Tuesdays with Morrie? I don't think we ruminate on death enough. And I think we should...because it would bring us closer to the opposite.

There are two things now, from the book, that I want to touch upon. Of course they are quotes, because if you ever read my stuff, my writing, you know that this is how I communicate best (i think).

The first is,
"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."
this is from pg.43

upon my first reading of this book (2007), this quote i carried with me so much that i immediately decorated a note card with it, carried the card to freshman year of college, and clipped it into one of those clippy photo holders, on my desk. i felt that i had discovered this during my senior year of high school: that community service sometimes sucks, though sometimes you try to do volunteer work and people take advantage of you and use you for free labor, ultimately, it is in this commitment that we find we are free. a paradox, no? it is part of something.it is not just to do with (_____), either...it has to do with being a citizen. to saying, "okay, i am here, what can i do? how i use myself, my personality, my strengths, to give something here?" to say it's "giving not getting" is to oversimplify. it's more than that...do you know what i mean? i wish i could express better what this means to me.

the second quote i want to touch upon is this. it comes from pg. 61.
"You closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too-even when you are in the dark. Even when you're falling."

i think this one speaks for itself more, but of course...i want to extrapolate a little more anyway. i think it speak to vulnerability. we avoid this so. much. appearances, appearances, appearances, dictate. and sometimes i just can't stand it. blah blah...anyway, i'll wrap this up, getting windy.

Last is, this. Not sure of page number. A note on culture.
"People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does...And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture."

Can we get past this?

i try and i fail and i try and i fail, but eventually, i will succeed.