is how long I have now been 21 years of age . In some ways it seems completely normal. Life hasn't changed all that much, I didn't wake up a completely different person on the 10th of January. It was just another day with the same amount of change as the one before it. But occasionally when I think "I'm 21", my next thought is "Really? 21 years is a long time. 21 is supposedly adult". I'm a TA for a college class, I grade papers, I pay rent and live in my own apartment. These seemed like scary concepts four years ago, but now they're just a way of life. Ok so I've done these things for a while, but now there's an officiality to it all. I can walk into a bar. There are very few things that I can't do on my own now and that's slightly disconcerting. I could go completely A-WOL and no one could stop me- I could rent a car, drive to North Dakota, leave my cell phone behind so no one could contact me, find a job, and completely start another life; is there Wells Fargo in North Dakota? I don't particularly want to live in ND, and I'm pretty darn happy with the life I'm living now. But that is a perfectly viable alternative that I could choose.
That might sound strange, but I think about these things. I've always been hyper-aware of responsibility and repercussions. When I first started driving I would have to remind myself to relax and breathe regularly because I was so terrified of the horrible damage I could do with just one wrong movement of the steering wheel. I know others feel liberated by this, they feel a sense of exhilaration at the power they wield, and so I should add that I do. But still... It's an adjustment. Not a life adjustment. Just a mentality adjustment. I'm sure I'll look back in a year or two and wonder what the big deal was. But right now I'm just coming to terms with the realities of adulthood and exactly what I want to do with the opportunities it provides.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
I can make up a title later
I really should blog about procrastinating because it's been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. It is a fundamental part of me that should be accounted for on a website that is basically a self-indulgent me-party. But here's the catch, I can't blog about procrastinating because one of my favorite and most satisfying means of procrastinating is blogging. That just wouldn't be right. So, nevermind, I don't think I'll talk about it. Goodnight my two loyal readers, I shall have to find another way to put off responsibility tonight.
Monday, January 25, 2010
A picture says a thousand words. How many do a few seconds of real life say?
From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/louobedlam/3097235253/
I work in an office. An office in which my only window to the world for several hours a day is a door that leads to a hallway. And everyday, as I sit at my desk doing secretarial things, I see people walk by. Even the slowest walkers only take a second to walk past. And for most people, unless they come into the office, or pace up and down the hall with a baby or on the phone, that one second is all I know about them. Whatever expression they have on their face at the precise moment they walk past my door, whatever they decide to say to the person on the other end of the phone in those brief moments, is the only thing I will likely ever know about them.
A girl walked by my office last week who had the saddest expression. It was there framed by the door one second and then gone the next. I don't know that I would even recognize the girl if I saw her again, but I remember the expression. I hope that in the moments of internal thought as she walked to class, or her car, or work, or lunch that she was thinking of something quite sad, because it must have been something quite sad to precipitate such a look. But I hope it was not something integral to her life. That this sadness only lies on the periphery. That she doesn't feel like that all the time. I don't know her, so I can hope for her.
Sometimes I wonder what I look like when I walk between classes. Often those are the only moments I get to myself. I'm either hyper-observant or completely engrossed in thought. What do others see when they look at me in these unguarded moments where I feel like I am completely isolated among a sea of thousands? Of the handful that actually look at me, how much can they know about me from those few seconds? How much do I reveal. It's just something I've been thinking about ever since I saw the girl with the sad expression. An expression she likely wouldn't show many people, but allowed to come through when she thought no one else was looking. I wonder...
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Endure To The End
I finished my application for the English Teaching Major!!! Scream and cheer ladies and gents 'cause it's probably the most complex application for a major ever- I don't think applying for BYU was nearly as hard. Nope there was less writing and no video. In the process of writing one of the essays, I ended up talking about learning how to write and thought I'd share, especially since I had to edit a lot of it out of the essay for length.
I came to BYU, a bright-eyed eighteen-year-old, with a Dining Plus card, an underused laptop, and an English major. I signed up for Honors 150 eager to sink my teeth into the college class that would prepare me to enter my discipline. Throwing myself into the first paper, a personal narrative, I felt like I really captured my chosen experience in those eight pages and did some soul-searching self-analysis to boot. I had even written the paper days before hand, revised it twice, AND had several classmates look over it for me. This was the formula for success, or so I thought. It turns out; this was the formula for mediocrity (which is what a B looks like to a high school valedictorian).
This became the pattern for the next couple of papers I turned it. Intense writing, the likes of which I had never engaged in before, followed up by severe disappointment. But it wasn’t the lower-than-expected-grades that were so frustrating—it was the fact that my teacher was looking for something in my writing that no matter how hard I tried, even after writing lectures, and one-on-one writing conferences, I couldn’t give her. It felt like everyone else in the class, even the non-English majors got it, and I didn’t. And I didn’t know what else I could do.
I started looking at other majors, convinced that because I just wasn’t a writer I couldn’t major in English despite my love for literature. But there was one problem with that—I have a very difficult time leaving things undone. It would have been one thing if I realized that I didn’t like literature as much as I thought I did, or liked something better, but the option I had proposed was defeat in disguise and so I decided to take English 251 the following semester. Eventually it came, not in a mere matter of months, but it came. Now I actually enjoy writing, I've come to appreciate the beauty of the painful process. A process that is by no means over.
P.S. I'm not sure who bought the LIFE cereal, but I was dead coming home after finishing my application, a very hungry dead person I might add, and I love life cereal more than a lot of types of food that should logically taste better. So thank you roommate or heavenly messenger that delivered them. They were much appreciated.
I came to BYU, a bright-eyed eighteen-year-old, with a Dining Plus card, an underused laptop, and an English major. I signed up for Honors 150 eager to sink my teeth into the college class that would prepare me to enter my discipline. Throwing myself into the first paper, a personal narrative, I felt like I really captured my chosen experience in those eight pages and did some soul-searching self-analysis to boot. I had even written the paper days before hand, revised it twice, AND had several classmates look over it for me. This was the formula for success, or so I thought. It turns out; this was the formula for mediocrity (which is what a B looks like to a high school valedictorian).
This became the pattern for the next couple of papers I turned it. Intense writing, the likes of which I had never engaged in before, followed up by severe disappointment. But it wasn’t the lower-than-expected-grades that were so frustrating—it was the fact that my teacher was looking for something in my writing that no matter how hard I tried, even after writing lectures, and one-on-one writing conferences, I couldn’t give her. It felt like everyone else in the class, even the non-English majors got it, and I didn’t. And I didn’t know what else I could do.
I started looking at other majors, convinced that because I just wasn’t a writer I couldn’t major in English despite my love for literature. But there was one problem with that—I have a very difficult time leaving things undone. It would have been one thing if I realized that I didn’t like literature as much as I thought I did, or liked something better, but the option I had proposed was defeat in disguise and so I decided to take English 251 the following semester. Eventually it came, not in a mere matter of months, but it came. Now I actually enjoy writing, I've come to appreciate the beauty of the painful process. A process that is by no means over.
P.S. I'm not sure who bought the LIFE cereal, but I was dead coming home after finishing my application, a very hungry dead person I might add, and I love life cereal more than a lot of types of food that should logically taste better. So thank you roommate or heavenly messenger that delivered them. They were much appreciated.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
A Self-Reflexive Reflection
It's FRIDAY! I am so happy about this fact. Although I'm not going home until after 10 tonight, I don't have to wake up until 8 tomorrow and that is a wonderful concept for my brain to latch onto as it's wading through the last hours of the first week of school.
For those of you who haven't been to college ever or perhaps it's been a while, the first week is hectic. Often your classes are still up in the air so you're running around like a crazy person to two or three that you're trying to add or thinking about adding and doing a little homework for every class but getting completely and horribly behind even though that seems impossible because school only started a couple of days ago. But that's almost all under control. I've decided on my classes and done almost all my homework for a couple of them and so I can enter next week with a little less trepidation, except for the fact that I have to do my English Teaching Application because I haven't learned how to not procrastinate yet. Oh well I'll be quite a bit older and wiser on Sunday so maybe that will help me out.
So I wasn't even going to post today, except my favorite person/writer/blogger/dresser is randomly in my American Literature class (which I love btw) and after reading my journal response to the class yesterday mentioned that I should post it on here. So here I am posting.
A Self-Reflexive Reflection
Although I encountered and discussed the term self reflexive in previous classes I never gave much engaged thought to the subject. I could identify it in a piece of literature, and tell you that it’s a major trend in post-modernism, but I never ventured to question why. However, with a text like The Uncommon Reader that disarms the reader with its snarky narrator and takes them on a self analyzing journey, I finally have the inclination to delve into the point of all this. And so I pose the question: why do writers write about writing and why do readers care to read it?
As Anne of Green Gables and Jo March can attest, often the best writing comes from writing what you know. And not surprisingly, most writers spend a lot time reading and even more time writing, meaning their experience pool is heavily weighted with these two activities. I’ve often wondered if the vast number of well read protagonists is horribly disproportional to the real world. Part of Harry Potter’s popularity is no doubt a result of his gloriously normal uncultured mind. But this assumption is tricky, because although readers identify with Harry, they wish they had Hermione’s brain. Each well read protagonist is a representation of what readers wish they were. Few of us are Hermione Grangers, but the majority of readers do it because they enjoy it and they relish little lines like, “A book is a device to ignite the imagination” (Bennett 34) because they understand it, they’ve experienced it, and it connects them a little bit more with the ideal, with the Hermione, they all want to be.
But clearly Postmodernists don’t write self-reflexively just because it makes their readers feel warm and fuzzy. I don’t think Samuel Beckett or Thomas Pynchon are even capable of writing warm and fuzzy. As books become less popular with the passing years, I sense an underlying justification in their self-reflexivity. They must answer the question “why write?” because they feel like the question hasn’t been sufficiently answered, or because the world hasn’t accepted their answer. I know why Alan Bennett writes: because he wants a voice. Because in books you “have your convictions corroborated” (Bennett 114) and because “[t]o write you have to be tough” (Bennett 105). And those are ideals even non readers can identify with.
Even as I find answers to my question of why, I’m left to wonder how it actually fits into post-modernism. You see, I’ve observed a bit of a paradox: in a period where authors write so much about the absence of truth and meaning, I feel that they are grasping for both in the very act of writing. Take the above mentioned quote for instance, in books you can “have your convictions corroborated” (Bennett 114), you can discover the truth of your very own feelings. After reading the queen notes that, “previously she wouldn’t have cared what the maid thought or that she might have hurt her feelings, only now she did” (Bennett 49). This ability to experience outside of one’s own sphere allows for an enhanced understanding. If truth doesn’t exist, then why write? If there is no meaning, why create? And I guess I’m back to my original question without any definitive answers. But somehow I think that’s the point. It’s where every writer returns when they look at a blank sheet of paper.
For those of you who haven't been to college ever or perhaps it's been a while, the first week is hectic. Often your classes are still up in the air so you're running around like a crazy person to two or three that you're trying to add or thinking about adding and doing a little homework for every class but getting completely and horribly behind even though that seems impossible because school only started a couple of days ago. But that's almost all under control. I've decided on my classes and done almost all my homework for a couple of them and so I can enter next week with a little less trepidation, except for the fact that I have to do my English Teaching Application because I haven't learned how to not procrastinate yet. Oh well I'll be quite a bit older and wiser on Sunday so maybe that will help me out.
So I wasn't even going to post today, except my favorite person/writer/blogger/dresser is randomly in my American Literature class (which I love btw) and after reading my journal response to the class yesterday mentioned that I should post it on here. So here I am posting.
A Self-Reflexive Reflection
Although I encountered and discussed the term self reflexive in previous classes I never gave much engaged thought to the subject. I could identify it in a piece of literature, and tell you that it’s a major trend in post-modernism, but I never ventured to question why. However, with a text like The Uncommon Reader that disarms the reader with its snarky narrator and takes them on a self analyzing journey, I finally have the inclination to delve into the point of all this. And so I pose the question: why do writers write about writing and why do readers care to read it?
As Anne of Green Gables and Jo March can attest, often the best writing comes from writing what you know. And not surprisingly, most writers spend a lot time reading and even more time writing, meaning their experience pool is heavily weighted with these two activities. I’ve often wondered if the vast number of well read protagonists is horribly disproportional to the real world. Part of Harry Potter’s popularity is no doubt a result of his gloriously normal uncultured mind. But this assumption is tricky, because although readers identify with Harry, they wish they had Hermione’s brain. Each well read protagonist is a representation of what readers wish they were. Few of us are Hermione Grangers, but the majority of readers do it because they enjoy it and they relish little lines like, “A book is a device to ignite the imagination” (Bennett 34) because they understand it, they’ve experienced it, and it connects them a little bit more with the ideal, with the Hermione, they all want to be.
But clearly Postmodernists don’t write self-reflexively just because it makes their readers feel warm and fuzzy. I don’t think Samuel Beckett or Thomas Pynchon are even capable of writing warm and fuzzy. As books become less popular with the passing years, I sense an underlying justification in their self-reflexivity. They must answer the question “why write?” because they feel like the question hasn’t been sufficiently answered, or because the world hasn’t accepted their answer. I know why Alan Bennett writes: because he wants a voice. Because in books you “have your convictions corroborated” (Bennett 114) and because “[t]o write you have to be tough” (Bennett 105). And those are ideals even non readers can identify with.
Even as I find answers to my question of why, I’m left to wonder how it actually fits into post-modernism. You see, I’ve observed a bit of a paradox: in a period where authors write so much about the absence of truth and meaning, I feel that they are grasping for both in the very act of writing. Take the above mentioned quote for instance, in books you can “have your convictions corroborated” (Bennett 114), you can discover the truth of your very own feelings. After reading the queen notes that, “previously she wouldn’t have cared what the maid thought or that she might have hurt her feelings, only now she did” (Bennett 49). This ability to experience outside of one’s own sphere allows for an enhanced understanding. If truth doesn’t exist, then why write? If there is no meaning, why create? And I guess I’m back to my original question without any definitive answers. But somehow I think that’s the point. It’s where every writer returns when they look at a blank sheet of paper.
Monday, January 4, 2010
When stressed out, look at the bright side:
- Religion classes- I haven't taken one in 6 months, so my professor's easy allusions to Latin, Greek and Hebrew translations made my heart go pitter patter.
- Choir!!!- It felt sooo good.
- At least I'm excited about my Tuesday classes...
- I still have both of my jobs and I'm excited to use my experiences last semester to become better at them
- Lisa and Landen are in the kitchen right now making the most delicious curry ever
- I saw a kazillion people I knew on campus today
- I'm saving a lot of money on text books this semester, hopefully I can find someone to let me borrow their iclicker
- I listened to music between classes today because my new ear phones actually work
- I don't have to go to the library tonight to study
- My birthday is on Sunday
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