Relief

I'm so happy that finals are over. I haven't posted in ages because I have been so incredibly busy. This was, without a doubt, the worst finals week of my life. I think I cried at least once every day. I know that sounds stupid, but I have never been so stressed out in my entire life. I can't wait to go home, hang out with family, go ice skating and eat sushi with Shannon and Rachel, and just do zero school work. I really can't believe that Christmas is a week away. It really sneaked up on me this year. I love Christmas, and now I feel like I can really enjoy it. Anyway, I'm going to start writing more, because it is a stress reliever for me. I definitely feel de-stressed now. Yay.

Questions

How do you know that someone is telling you the truth? Can you tell if they aren't? Obviously I don't know everything about everyone, but what if I'm missing something big? I'm not talking about everyone I know, but just someone in particular.

I really want to go home for Thanksgiving. I was in my room tonight after being gone all day, and I was listening to Christmas music. I know, it's early. But I only have a month to listen to it, and there is something so comforting about those songs I have sung all my life. I was listening to Christmas music, and suddenly I was so homesick that I had tears in my eyes. And I wasn't homesick for just the city I'm from. I was homesick for how it used to be when I lived close to my grandparents and my cousins. We always had huge family Thanksgivings and tag games and I miss that. Now we live 2000 miles away, and I am a little sad. I want to sit at my grandmother's worn out oak table and have her set one of her home cooked meals on the place mat in front of me. I want to hold my cousin's little girl. I want to sit on the old porch swing and look out over the pastures of the family farm. Most of all, I want to see my grandfather again. He passed away one year ago at this time, and all I want is to hug him again. To smell his tobacco and khaki scent and to feel his scratchy flannel shirt as he kisses me on the cheek. To see him smile at all of us grandchildren. I can't really describe how close my family feels at those gatherings, because there is nothing in the world like it, and no one else would fully understand. And now he's missing from those, and it is weird.

Wow, how depressing. But I'm just in that homesick state of mind. So I'm going to listen to more Bing Crosby and go to sleep. Tomorrow's Friday!

Thanks giving

What a surprisingly wonderful Wednesday I had. It started off as not so great, with me sleeping through my alarm, thus missing my observation at the high school and running late to my appointment with one of my professors. I felt exhausted through most of the day, like I hadn't slept all week or something. Then I had American Literature. And we are reading about Emily Dickinson and her Civil War poems and it was fascinating. And for the first time in a long time, I can't get enough of one of my classes. But that wasn't why my day was great.
I had a talk with a friend, and she confided in me some things that she had been wanting to for a long time. It was nice to be trusted and at the same time be a comforter. Now I have the challenge of helping her through this, and it is something I am so grateful for.
I also had passion tonight, and only me and one other girl showed up. This was a blessing in disguise, for it made the meeting so intimate and beneficial. Not that it wouldn't have been if there were more people, but it really was so great. We talked about giving thanks and things we are thankful for and we wrote thank you cards to people we normally wouldn't have thought to write them to. It was amazing, because when you are giving thanks to God you realize just how much you have and how blessed you are, and suddenly that paper or one bad grade seems so insignificant to everything good in your life. Suddenly my life takes on meaning that I had lost sight of in the midst of the stress and the muck of the final weeks of school. God is with me, God has blessed me beyond measure, and I am so grateful.
I am thankful for my friends. We have grown closer this semester as we all have faced challenges and worked through them. We have been irritated, frustrated, stressed, angry, sometimes confused. And we are still there for one another. We have reached that place where we are comfortable enough to have a fight with one another. And that experience brought us closer. I am thankful for this school. I cannot say how challenging this semester has been. I have never had harder school work than now. Yet I'm thinking and learning and growing, and that is exciting. I am thankful for my family. I am thankful that I have sisters and wonderful parents. I am so appreciative of the way they raised me, the lessons they taught me. I am so unbelievably thankful.

If this post sounds over-optimistic, it is. Because it would suck to look back on my life and see that I missed all the wonderful things that were right in front of me, things that were a part of me all along.

Wonderful Fall

I love this time of year. Pumpkins, leaves, candy corn, cold-but-not-too-cold weather. I am dressing up as a ladybug tonight. I know, it's kind of juvenile, but I want to. Plus, I'm tired of girls using Halloween as an excuse to wear next to nothing. So, in protest, I'm covering up as much skin as I possibly can. Anyway...
We are going to a Haunted House. I'm excited, because there is something thrilling about being scared. I hope it's fun and not lame. Sometimes things in little towns like this can be hyped up and turn out to be the most boring part of your life that you have ever experienced. Like the local festival in the spring here, which everyone said it would be SO fun, but in truth, every booth sold the same items and my cell phone was stolen by a bunch of punk high school kids. oh well. I'm sure it will be a good time.
I am putting a picture up with this post that I took in Kansas City at Worlds of Fun. Rachel, Alyssa, and Shannon were riding a ride, and I was waiting for them because I felt like I was going to throw up. That has never happened to me when riding roller coasters, but it did on that trip. Which was sad, but I was secretly glad because I got to sit under a tree with yellow leaves and think and it was fun. We also ate caramel apples there, and I felt really autumn-y. Except the caramel on mine was about ten inches thick and it was hard to eat. But luckily Shannon will eat anything I don't want, so she just ate all the extra caramel and I got to eat the sour green apple. Yum.

Tiresome

When I'm tired, every little thing is magnified. Like, I get annoyed or upset about things that shouldn't even bother me. On Monday night I stayed up doing school work until four in the morning, which was stupid. That made the next day horrible. And then, when I was trying to do homework last night I was falling asleep. So I went to bed before ten. Which never happens.

So what's the point?

I've just been thinking about how much I let my situations or feelings affect me. I let situations like this define how I react to things, or how I respond to people. I shouldn't let how tired I feel make me act a certain way. I feel like I do that too much.

What to do?

It's cold and rainy outside, I'm listening to Coldplay and drinking tea. A perfect evening. Or, it would be, if I could figure out what to write about for my column due to the newspaper by tomorrow at five. I feel so grown up when I have to meet a deadline like this. I also feel scared when I put a piece of writing out there. It's like wearing that new dress that you're not sure about. What will people say about me? Do they like this? Do they think I'm weird? I know you can't please everyone, and I know that not everyone is going to like my article or even read it, but it's still a part of me.

Kind of like this.

This has become sort of a confession booth for me. I can just talk about what's going on in my head and ramble on and no one really reads it, but it's out there and I like that. I express my thoughts and it's fun and fulfilling.

Here's a thought. I work in the writing center at my school, and the other day a girl came in with a paper about slavery. Defending it , actually. She was trying to be all controversial, I could tell. She wasn't agreeing that it was right, but she was trying to defend her view that we (American people) have made it worse than it was. And I wasn't tutoring her, but I was listening. In disbelief.
I have been reading a lot of slave narratives lately in one of my classes, and I can tell you that it was horribly worse than we can ever imagine, not the other way around. And we forget about it, and we forget that slavery still exists. I know, I haven't done anything about it. But, as I was reading Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" for class tomorrow, I realized that I need to do something about it. Why talk? We can talk about what's going on until our faces turn blue and our mouth dries out, but if we refuse to act what do we accomplish?

One of my favorites...

Introduction To Poetry

I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem's room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author's name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means. Billy Collins

Procrastination in a cup of tea

Today was a perfect weather day. It was cloudy, cold, misty, with that fall chill in the air. The tops of trees are orange and I am just in love with fall. I should be writing my paper right now but I hate that class so I don't care at the moment. I am about to make a cup of tea, which will be my third cup of the day. That's another thing this weather makes me do. Drink an insane amount of hot beverages. I found the best organic tea this summer. It's called Yogi tea and there are crazy kinds like Women's Moon Cycle and Fasting and they are wonderful. The tea tag has a little saying of wisdom on it too, like, "Let things come to you." Haha. Really deep, I know. But I really am obsessed with this tea. You can get it at health food stores, and you should, because it is amazing. I am leaving to make some this second. Maybe it will infuse me with the wisdom to write the next four pages of my paper. Ugh.

Dreaming of Europe

I miss Europe. The pace of life, the culture, the oldness of it. On Monday we had a rep from an international school in Germany come to one of my classes. She talked about teaching overseas and the great opportunity we could be a part of if we took a chance and went over there. I really want to, and I'm seriously thinking about doing that when I graduate in a year. In a YEAR. That is scary, and it is intimidating to think about going to another country by myself. But the possibility is so exciting too.

I have an eight page paper to write...

So, after having this account for ages and not posting or anything, I am starting tonight, when I should be writing my paper over 18th century literature. I don't care. I still have until Thursday. Tonight Carrie, Alyssa, Rachel, Shannon and I went to Fayetteville to shop. On a Tuesday. It was fun to do that in the middle of the week. Actually, we had to get a wedding present for our friends, but it was still fun. And can I just say that I love Target? If you don't you have a problem.
I feel like everyone is getting married. It is exciting in a way, but it is so weird too. I am tired but I wanted to post at least once so I feel like this blog has some kind of purpose, even if it is just for me to ramble on about nothing.