Really Late

[Yikes, it's been a long time since I've written! But, in my defense, I'm not sure than anybody is still reading this. Well, it's very old news now, but I am officially no longer a journalism major! I was so miserable in the J-school, and I am much happy as an impractical English major (with a journalism minor; I'm not quite away from the J-school yet).
Schoolwork is keeping me quite busy, though I'm only taking twelve hours I have a ridiculous amount to do before thanksgiving break.]

Okay, so that was also written a while ago. I've given up trying to go back, so once again I'm forced to summarize. (And once again, if anyone is still reading and caring about this, LET ME KNOW. I am one of those crazy people who only keeps up with things when she has an audience.)

Goodbye, Journalism.
Hello, English.

Out: Stitches
In: Scars

I'm through with attending class with bronchitis, speaking to 3 classes of strangers about living with OCD, and that dratted journalism paper.

Currently obsessed with: Heroes

(All my other shows are gone, and not returning anytime soon. Shower the Writer's Union with everything they want! Give them raises, pineapple on a platter, palaces--or at least a decent deal!)

If you want to hear really humorous trivia about 19th century embroidery, let me know. (Gosh, I am so weird. But it was for a school project. Honest. Or does that make it worse?)

Yeah, that pretty much brings things up to the present. Last night Sarah and I decorated our apartment for Christmas, which was a lot of fun. Thankfully neither of us was hospitalized (Me + rocking chair +hanging tacks at the top of wall + really really hard wall = likely disaster) Hmmm, maybe that's because Sarah pushed in almost all the tacks, while I held the string of lights and handed her tacks (though I kept walking away, still pulling on the lights. . .). Anyhow, fun times.

The Lizard Hunt

Sarah and I have had some misadventurous moments since moving into our apartment, but the most interesting so far has been the epic Hunt of the Lizard (or: The Perilous Quest of the Lightning-Endowed Skink). Well, anyway I thought it was the best, until Emily told us about the bat in her apartment, but that’s another story.
A week ago, on Sunday, I was getting ready to leave for church (Sarah’s service was later) when Sarah, who was sitting on the couch, sat up abruptly, and said, “There’s a lizard under our coach.” I thought this was sort of cool, while Sarah started freaking out and calling Jason (our friend who’s a forestry major) asking him if any lizards in Missouri were poisonous. I told her to get a plastic cup (I was NOT having a Wild Animal in any dishware we were going to use again, washed or no), and then lift up the coach while I captured it in the cup.
Whether or not this plan would have worked or not is a moot point, for when she lifted the couch I was presented with the sight of a dark spot of lizard at the back, a sight more disconcerting than I expected, and a dead cricket closer at hand, which completely put me over the edge. Sarah, at this point, decided to be the brave one, so we switch places. But we she leaned over with the cup, the lizard just—disapperated*. I didn’t even see it move, that’s how fast it was. At that point Sarah and I both jumped and started screaming, which poor Jason had to listen to, as he was still on speakerphone.
At that point I wished Sarah good luck and left for church (I know, how sweet of me.) When I came back, the lizard was still not caught, though Jason and Scott had come over and chased it around the apartment, until it ran into a hole in the wall (that’s just great). They shoved paper down it, and Sarah planned to call maintenance to caulk it up later, though I was not thrilled with an idea of having a dead lizard in our walls. Have a mentioned that the other side of the hole, if it went anywhere, would be my bedroom? Sarah asked me to keep an eye on the hole when I could, just in case, and I waved her off with a non-committal hand wave.
For the next few hours I sat at my desk, typing out a transcript for the Missourian (ugh!). I was almost finished when I looked up, and saw, poised in the doorway as if to say hello, the lizard. It stayed there for half a second, then dashed into my closet. “Oh no you don’t,” I muttered. “No lizard in living in MY closet.” I set about methodically pulling everything off the floor of the closet. Every time I pulled one item out, the lizard would dart under the next. Finally I was down to one 3-drawer cart, which I pulled out into the middle of the room. At this point the lizard followed it to the middle of the room, and I realized that one plastic cup was not going to be sufficient to catch this foe, as I did not intend to touch it. I ran into the kitchen and got another cup, then ran back.
I suppose it is obvious that for all my bravado, this little creature terrified me more than I care to say. So it was with a pounding heart that I yanked up the cart and faced the lizard. It stayed still, but seemed ready at any moment to dark off, under some huge piece of furniture, no doubt. Slowly, slowly, I lowered the two cups until there was one in front of the lizard’s face and one right behind its tale. If the lizard ran forward or backward, it was mine. If it dashed to the side, all was lost. I paused for a moment, unwilling to make the next move. Then, I hardly remember what I did, but the lizard ran forward into the cup, and I scooped it upright.
All of a sudden it put on its burst of speed, skittling against the side of the cup frantically. But I had it! In triumph I took it outside, set it down while I grabbed my digital camera to take pictures, and then took it down to the pool to show Sarah, to reassure her that it was, indeed, out of our apartment. Then, after showing it off to everyone at the pool, I let it go in the vines, where I could hear lots of other lizards shuffling around. And that is the story of how I became a successful lizard hunter.

(I’ll try to add a picture later, only then you’ll all laugh at me, since it was so small.)

* If you don't know this term, you probably missed the Harry Potter craze.

A Florida Saga

I'm writing this from Captiva Island, Florida—not my usual stomping grounds. Thanks to some nice friends, we are staying at a lovely beach cottage right by the ocean. With our usual traveling expertise and direct route (yes, that is meant to be sarcastic) it only took us three days to get here. It didn't take even that long for the misadventures to start.
My dad drove almost the entire way, but I did spell him for 20 minutes just outside of Orlando. Of course, within that short time, more crazy stuff happened on the road, including a truck blowing out a tire right in front of me, than the rest of the trip combined (almost).
When we arrived late Saturday evening (after over 26 hours in the car), we walked into the TV blaring. There were crayons and groceries on the counter, and the beds had the sheets on but used. "Hello?" we called out, to no answer. Freaky. It felt a little like a twilight-zone setup, except that humid Florida evenings do not good atmosphere make. A couple of phone calls later, we found out that the people staying before us had left last Wednesday, but that the cleaning people thought they weren't leaving until this coming Wednesday. Within an hour or two it was all worked out, and we had a fun dinner on the back porch in the dark of frozen pizza and root beer while they cleaned up the place.

* * *
Right now I'm sitting with my leg propped up on pillows, with ice and a towel wrapped around a large lump. It all started with Delusions of Grandeur (what a great phrase).
My mom, being the cool mom she usually is, found a nifty book on sandcastle building. We've always made, in our opinion, very nice (aka totally cool) sandcastles with those little plastic molds and our hands. But this made our old sandcastles look like a kindergartener's finger painting compared to a Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece—nice, but oh wow is there a bigger world out there! The sandcastles in this book were amazing, and it started by teaching you different techniques for building up with the sand. So we read the book, oohed over the pictures, and congratulated my mom on her foresight in bringing all the necessary supplies, from putty knives to a huge shovel. Then yesterday afternoon we went out onto the beach to start practicing.
As so often happens, our efforts were anything but successful. Lukas and Julia made some cool stuff, but we could not get the hand-packing technique to work (we decided the sand was too shelly). I was still dedicatedly struggling along, though harboring the gravest doubts as to my chance of success, when I went down to fill up the bucket with water again. We had already dug several different holes, trying to find the right sort of sand, but attempted to fill them back up afterwards like the considerate people we are. I should mention that the beach is not a flat stretch but rather hilly, with several fairly sizable mounds and dips between the dunes and the ocean. I was walking with my usual non-existent grace when I reached the top of one such hill, put my food down in one of our small left-over holes, and in one not-so-fluid motion twisted my ankle and went sprawling across the sand.
I just sort of sat there is shock, then started moaning (I think) and clutching the sand with my fists. Okay, so my tolerance for pain is like zero, but that was not a fun experience. Julia and my dad were out in the water, and they saw me and hurried back to help. I'm sure I looked like a very pale and sick beached whale, and Julia told me afterward that everything I said was in a "little girl voice" and sounded really stupid. I thought I was doing rather well. Everything started going blurry, and I could feel the sand I was still digging my hands into and bright light and then dark, and that was about it. My dad kept trying to get me to sit or sand up, and I kept trying to tell him that I couldn't see and was going to pass out. There was that weird muffled feeling, when you hear and yet don't hear, and you know that you are and aren't there—I can't describe it very well. I don't like that lost feeling, and I just wanted to black out or come back. I've only passed out once before, and that was when I was getting blood drawn (it didn't help that I was just reading a book about a girl who had just passed out from bubonic plague right before I got called back). Anyhow, I felt dizzy and disoriented, but I didn't actually pas out for more than a few seconds, and eventually the world cam back into focus.
Getting back to the house was Not fun; I was begging my dad to just let me crawl back, but eventually with Lukas' help too we made it back. So, like 24 hours later I'm sitting inside with a sprained/twisted ankle and writing this blog. I can get around the house, and made it out to lunch with everyone, but it's still a bit unhappy and I decided going out on the beach today was a bad idea. Thankfully I'm more of an indoor person, so the forced inactivity isn't so bad.

Second Annual End of the (School)Year Awards

TV Shows "adopted": LOST, House, Battlestar Galactica, Drive, Supernatural
New Favorite: Battlestar Galactica

Top Book Series: The Amelia Peabody Books, Vicky Bliss Mysteries, Maximum Ride Books, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Ursula Blanchard Mysteries, Bloody Jack Adventures, Montmorency Books
Favitorite Series: The Amelia Peabody Books by Elizabeth Peters

Top Books: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, The Thirteenth Tale, The Goblin Wood, The China Garden, The Hollow Kingdom (re-read), The Wrong Reflection
Favorite:The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Least Favortie Thing: [adult swim] (TV cartoon programs), constant anime shows

Best Moments:
~going to AIDA with my mom and Julia
~shocking Marcus with my ALIAS halloween costume
~every Tuesday night

Best Thing About Sophomore Year: Having Lukas/a car at college

Favorite Classes:
(1st semester) 19th Century British Women Writers taught by Julie Melnyk
(2nd semester) Write About Literature taught by Karen Laird

Favorite New CDS/Groups: Celtic Woman: A New Journey, The Everglow by Mae, various songs by Hayley Westenra, Adie's cd Adie, Snow Patrol, The Fray
Favorite: no comment

Favorite words: lilting, fey, xeric

Dichotomy

Yet again I apologize for the long absence. Maybe I should just write a disclaimer at the top of my blog. But now classes are over and I'm at home, back to the more recent pressure of "why-can't-you-find-a-job?"
Anyhow, I haven't been able to think of too much exciting that has happened lately; my life has pretty much been schoolwork and hanging out with Lukas and my friends. But one wacky thing did happen to me two weeks ago . . . (swirling camera, flashback, --oh never mind)

I was home for the weekend, even though I had less than one week of school left, because I realized there was no way Lukas and I would be able to fit all the crap from our dorm rooms into one car trip. It was a typical weekend, except when I went to Clara's Poms performance. Poms is. . .I don't really know how to describe it. Dancing mixed with cheerleading? It's mostly just dance, except that they are supposed to have pom poms, which they didn't. Go figure that one out.

The majority of girls in Clara's Poms class (this is made up of girls from her school) are Jewish, so it makes sense that a lot of their performances would be at Jewish Community Centers. In any case, this performance was at a JCC for a Russian festival, or some such thing. Well, we get there, and when we head into the auditorium the only people there are elderly people dressed nicely, and (elderly) men in military uniforms with tons of medals on their chests. As the auditorium fills up, the first two thirds of people follow the same pattern, with the last bit made up of informally dressed west county parents and young kids, aka the families of the Poms girls. Just wait. The weirdness hasn't even started yet.

Well, the program starts, and all the speaking is in--Russian. As in, all of it. Not a smidgen of English translation hovering on the air anywhere. The lady introducing someone (in Russian, remember), and thus starts a sequence of clapping, person shuffling to the microphone (50/50 chance they won't actually speak into it), person reading serious speech or letter, more solemn clapping, repeat. Occasionally this was interspersed with a song performed (in Russian, remember), etc. Eventually we came to the conclusion that the military men had fought in Russia in WWII against the Nazis, and one man was even turning 100 that day!

So every few speeches, the announcer would come up, make another introduction in Russian, but one in which we were at least able to catch the English word "Poms." Then all these cute little very Americanized girls would prance onstage in their leotards and costumes, and dance to songs like "I'm a Material Girl" and "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." I cannot communicate how utterly ridiculous this was. It was like any dance recital, but interspersed with this serious occasion made the contrast beyond crazy. I reflected that if someone were trying to make a point about the frivolousness of Americans they couldn't have hit on a better example.

So back and forth it went: first person accounts about war and living in a time of atrocities, then paeans to American consumerism. Maybe we can hope that, just like we missed the Russian words, maybe they didn't catch the lyrics of the songs. Still, I'm afraid, the message was all too clear.

Awake--Barely

So Tired. Very, very tired (floating--light--sleepy smile). I've just survived two of the longest days of the year. . .semester. . .life.

Yesterday I was busy doing all the crazy assignments that I had to turn into day. Then I had Bible study, where it was just Sarah and Maggie (the two leaders) and me, so we got distracted from the book of Hosea and instead tried to work through the passage that says it's wrong for women to have short hair. If anybody has any answers on that one, feel free to enlighten me. Then I went to see "300." Basically it's blood, violence, violence, violence, sex, and storytelling--in other words your typical greek epic.

So last night I got around five hours sleep.
My first class this morning was my Spanish class, where we had a huge test.
Then came fiction, where I had to stay awake and participate.
Then Journey of the Hero, where I had to stay awake, and turn in my 14 page paper on Gilgamesh.
Then Write About Literature, where I had to stay awake and turn in a 20 page reading journal
Then Cross Cultural Journalism, where I had another midterm.

And now I'm back in my room, trying to stay awake long enough to have dinner.
Then I will hopefully go sleep, study psych (for another test tomorrow), watch LOST, etc.

Tomorrow's going to be crazy too.

The Dangers of Editing

Peer Editing is bad for me. So is writing in books.

Point Number One.

This semester I'm in an introduction to creative writing class. So for every class we're supposed to read one of our classmate's stories and write a 200 word or more critique by the next class (and trust me, that gets old after a while). But the reason I bring this up is that now my automatic mode is to grab a pencil and start marking up someone's work.

Point Number Two.

Some teachers have finally forced me to admit the necessity of writing in books. I've spent the first nineteen years of my life avidly resisting this intrusion. When asked why, the best I can do is fumble for an answer that consists of "Well, I've always shared books with my siblings, or checked them out from the library, so writing in them wasn't really in option." While this is mostly true, I've been reflecting on it and realized that there was a bigger reason. I think of books primarily for enjoyment. And if a whole bunch of notes are scattered all over the page, you can't let yourself fall into the secondary world; you are always being pulled back and forced to analyze the passage before you can even really read it. If a book is worth reading, I liked to pass it on to someone else and let them enjoy it as well. They can't do that if notes are written all over the page and passages are underlined for no apparent reason. Why did they underline that passage about the circus? Or so-and-so's hair? Maybe this is only a problem for OCD people like myself, who must read every word of every sign, cereal box, and posted flyer. But one of my good friends brought this up too, so I don't really think so.

Result.

There are reasons why crazed OCD editors are not let loose on the unsuspecting world. Now that I have overcome my law about not writing in schoolbooks, at least (in pencil, mind you), and now that I have been consistently reviewing and critiquing people's work, I can't get myself to stop. I was reading a fiction book last night, and while I liked the plot idea, silly though it was, my overwhelming desire was to take a pencil and write notes of correction all over the pages. Change this sentence, please please please show don't tell, is this your character's view, or your own, check historical accuracy, lame sentence, etc.

This new editorial furor is not limited to books. I find errors on websites, handouts, everywhere. Unfortunately, there are a few problems and limitations. It has not helped me look at my own work objectively. I see what I think I wrote, and often not what is actually there. Second, it is not a consistent gift. I suppose that’s what happens when you have a dyslexic, spelling-disabled fantasy reader turned journalist to deal with. So in the end I’m left in my lovely castle of words until a jarring error sends me spiraling down to earth. Just make sure yours isn’t the one in a hundred error I’ll catch. :)


P.S. I have no clue why they make “dyslexic” such an impossible word for dyslexics to spell. It’s cruel.

The Short Version

Life is crazy, hectic, awesome, depressing, and busy busy busy. I'm overwhelmed enough already without the black cloud of you-haven't-updated-your-blog worries. So instead of giving a play by play of the last few weeks, I'm merely going to give you the short version.

My Life Recently Consists of:

the woman in white, ruf retreat, parking tickets, reading journals, gilgamesh, long papers, fiction writing [for class], carrying an insanely heavy backpack through the rain, anne of green gables, the theban plays, corpus callosum, psychology notes, cross cultural journalism, freaking out about next semester, getting new tennis shoes muddy, babysitting, spanish subjective tense, peer-edits, being accepted into the magazine sequence, mr. knightley, supernatural, lost, battlestar galactica, s'mores, planning for summer, advil, lots of driving, decisions, dragons, naps, noise, tests, weird short stories, good friends, freecell, and schoolwork, schoolwork, schoolwork.

Pizza, Fondue, Shrews, Movies, Teas, & Craziness

Yikes! I'm sorry I've been so sporadic about keeping up with this blog-- my life (both academically and socially) has been very busy and crazy. While I'm not sure how entertaining hearing about my life right now will be, I'll let you read about it and judge for yourselves.

Last weekend, in addition to the mound of schoolwork on my desk, I managed to have a very crazy and jam-packed weekend. On Friday night, I went to our second Guild meeting. The Guild is our version of the Inklings, a small group of writers dedicated to reading, writing, loving God, and enjoying each other's company. Not that that's our motto or anything. My good friend Sarah started it, and it is comprised mostly of students from RUF. We've been meeting at Memorial Union, which is the closest thing we have to the Bird and the Baby. Unfortunately, the little coffee (and hot chocolate!) place was closed, so we had to do without. On the bright side, Mizzou After Dark (fun events on friday nights) was setting up for a Valentine-making party, and after our meeting we got free pizza, soda, and chocolate fondue (and yes, for college students those go together very well).

On Saturday, I met Jason, Marcus, and Mike for dinner at Plaza (the "nice" dining hall), and we debated on what to do that night. Mike wanted to go to Stephen College's production of The Taming of the Shrew, and Jason and Marcus were all for renting a movie. After some vacillating, I threw in my lot with Mike, and we all ended up going to the play, and then afterwards going to rent movies. The play was awesome; very top notch and enjoyable. The actors (all students!) were amazing, and they made every part seem clear and accessible. They started out in modern times wearing modern clothes, and Kate gets knocked out by bullies and wakes up in the production. As the play progresses, the outfits slowly morph into medieval garments. There were some very clever scenes too, like when Petruccio is "courting" Kate for the first time, they are in a boxing ring, literally swinging and jumping at each other as they deliver their verbal punches. After the play, we watched "Entrapment (Sean Connery, Katherine Zeta-Jones). I got back to my dorm after midnight, and couldn't fall asleep because people were bouncing a basketball in the hall and being obscenely loud (and I'm on a quiet floor!) So at two, when I still couldn't sleep, this short and silly poem came to me called "Kate's Revenge" and I got up (for once) and wrote it down.

Sunday I dragged myself to church, and since Lukas was at home with the car, I went to church on campus. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan ahead, and realized that I had no stockings or knee-highs to wear (and it was freezing out!). When I got to church, I realized that the dressy shoes were rubbing my ankles raw, and one was bleeding. Just great! Of course I had no band-aids. So after church I got a ride with Jason back to Mike’s, were eventually we ended up making omelets (the boys did, that is) and watching 10 Things I Hate About You. Mike was nice enough to give me a ride to the Jane Austen Tea I was going to at 2:00. My Write about Lit teacher (who’s awesome, by the way) heard that the Columbia Jane Austen Society was having this event, and invited anyone in the class who was interested. It was at the Kayotea tearoom downtown, and everybody got their own little pot of tea (over forty choices)! I picked Wild Strawberry. There were also chocolate chip scones (yum!). It was funny, because my teacher (who’s a PhD student) and I were the closest in age, and we were sitting next to each other, so when we were introduced to people it was like, “yes, we’re both students at Mizzou.” And then I would laugh and say “But she’s actually my teacher, too.” Anyhow, a lot of fun. That night, I had to watch Battlestar Galactica (Lukas and I are finally caught up!).

So you can see why my life is crazy. Add 18 credit hours of class to that, and you have a good idea of why I'm sleep deprived.

A New Conspiracy

I will excuse my long absence only by saying that nothing particularly exciting or misadventurous (in even a small way) has happened to me lately. Well, except for my post-modern Buddhist monk teacher, and the start of The Guild. . .but those are stories for another time.

Every time I walk out of the main library entry here on campus, there is this sign that really bothers me. It says

WHEN THE ALARM SOUNDS, PLEASE STEP BACK

It's right past those scanner-things, I suppose to stop people who already had no qualms about stealing books from running and escaping with them. But something was nagging at my mind and bothering me, and it finally came to me: the problem with the sign is that it said when the alarm sounds, not if the alarm sounds. Really, I thought, affronted. I have no intention of setting off the alarm, so please keep you accusations to yourself (when I say that, I feel like a little old lady poking some silly youngster with her parasol).

Still, it raises important life-questions. Does the library really expect 9 out of 10 students to set off the alarm? Is it to discourage professors from stealing books? Are their really no English majors working at the library? Or is it some darker plot, to frame innocent library-goers and hit them with a crime they never committed?

Hmmm. Or maybe they just believe in original sin.