I get a crazy amount of anxiety when I'm left to myself and offered any kind of intellectual stimulation. It's a funny thing, really - it doesn't have to be an article about the city, or a discussion of mobility, or anything that should spark this feeling in me. But tonight, laying on the couch with a book open and the TV on, I feel this wave of anxiety settle over me.
I use the word "settle" deliberately - I feel like anxiety for me is a kind of blanket. It's near me, and then I choose to wrap myself up in it to feel all the melancholy feelings. It feels good some nights, especially the nights I need to remember there's more out there for us. Lately there have been an excess of those kind of nights - as great as my job is, there's this part of me just awash in longing for something that I can't completely verbalize.
I want to go experience the city again. I think about the idea of packing things up and moving, and this time not so temporarily, and I feel the pit in my stomach growing both with need and with nervousness. I want so badly to get away from all of the things that I see every day - have been seeing every day for years - but the idea of leaving, really and truly, is nervewracking. It's the city in my rearview mirror, when it shouldn't be in the rearview at all.
I guess what I'm getting at is that some days, I'm SO READY to move to the next phase of our lives. I'm ready to breathe my own air in a city that I don't have to share with everyone I know. I can't wait to hear street sounds and foreign voices, and it only took me three years to realize how much I loved those things. I'm ready to be the kind of grown up that gets to think about marriage and kids and tenure track jobs and careers, but I'm also terrified of all of those things.
I miss that sense of adventure and longing and exploration with Brian. He is my perfect exploring companion, and the responsibility I have right now is stifling that special part of our relationship that I think very few people have. I guess I have the wanderlust back.
8.05.2013
6.27.2012
Summertime, and the Living is Easy
My sister (rightly) commented yesterday that I only blog when I need to work through something, or unless I'm miserable. And while I think that's absolutely a common theme for writers - the best artists die young and miserable - I thought I'd try to write "happy" for a change. I did it a little in New York, but that was such a melancholic happiness that it absolutely worked anyway.
I've come back to such a comfortable equilibrium. I feel assured of my position at Drip - there are bumps and brief frustrations, but it's the kind of frustration that is right and healthy in the service industry. If it were always smooth and simple, something would be terrifically wrong. The minute everything becomes smooth is the moment that I've become complacent, and until then, the rocks and bumps push me to become faster and better.
Today was my first day off in a short time - maybe a week and a half? I spent it napping and thinking, cuddling with the dogs, and spending time with family. The time I spend with one dog behind my knees and another cradled to my chest just reminds me that I've done something incredibly right. When we came home from vacation and I was happy to be back in my house going to my job, I realized that I'm immensely lucky. But it's more fun to live that kind of love than it is to write about it, see. Will I at some point start to get scared that I'm throwing away my potential again? Absolutely. But this is an easier form of misery than that previous job.
Right now, the extent of my restlessness is trying to figure out where the next piercing should go. My ratio requires one more piercing before I can hit that next tattoo. Both of them are starting to itch at my mind - in small part because of the number I see every day at work, in some part because I can feel things shifting inside me. It's time to stretch my canvas. I don't paint, so I pay other people to paint on my canvas for me.
Maybe I need to stretch in another way too - start thinking about things the way I used to, ready to store pictures for later writing and use. It used to be easy for me, but after I graduated, something sort of turned off for me. I need to figure out how to re-inspire myself, or at least start to see things the way I used to.
I've come back to such a comfortable equilibrium. I feel assured of my position at Drip - there are bumps and brief frustrations, but it's the kind of frustration that is right and healthy in the service industry. If it were always smooth and simple, something would be terrifically wrong. The minute everything becomes smooth is the moment that I've become complacent, and until then, the rocks and bumps push me to become faster and better.
Today was my first day off in a short time - maybe a week and a half? I spent it napping and thinking, cuddling with the dogs, and spending time with family. The time I spend with one dog behind my knees and another cradled to my chest just reminds me that I've done something incredibly right. When we came home from vacation and I was happy to be back in my house going to my job, I realized that I'm immensely lucky. But it's more fun to live that kind of love than it is to write about it, see. Will I at some point start to get scared that I'm throwing away my potential again? Absolutely. But this is an easier form of misery than that previous job.
Right now, the extent of my restlessness is trying to figure out where the next piercing should go. My ratio requires one more piercing before I can hit that next tattoo. Both of them are starting to itch at my mind - in small part because of the number I see every day at work, in some part because I can feel things shifting inside me. It's time to stretch my canvas. I don't paint, so I pay other people to paint on my canvas for me.
Maybe I need to stretch in another way too - start thinking about things the way I used to, ready to store pictures for later writing and use. It used to be easy for me, but after I graduated, something sort of turned off for me. I need to figure out how to re-inspire myself, or at least start to see things the way I used to.
5.24.2012
Reflection on Transitions
My awesome, supportive mom called my attention to a blog post from 09.29.11, which I titled "Transitions" (yeah I'm cliche). I was right on the verge of beginning the job that I'm now right on the verge of ending, and so it seems like an appropriate time to reflect on what I've learned in the last nine months, and try to parse through some of the same-but-opposite feelings that I have now.
You know what jumps out to me first? This line right here: "[Sean is] such a generous man, and the thought of leaving a boss who already loves me and respects me is terrifying." I think there was some amount of prescience on my part there, and as my mom mentioned, a certain amount of doubt that I felt acutely right from the get-go. If I knew that two particular qualities were so important to me - the love and respect of my boss, and a sense that I am accomplished in my field - then why did I leave? Maybe it's as simple as having been caught up in the career-path delusion, which turned out not to be applicable to me anyway when I found out that this job was nothing like a career, and more like a time-filler.
I've really tried to consider what I've learned from this experience. I've weighed my different reasons for being unhappy in this job, trying to figure out which ones were about people and which ones were about the work itself. If I'm perfectly honest, part of it probably had to do with the hours. Oddly, I really enjoy having afternoons to myself, and those three hours I'd get off earlier at Drip left me room to at least consider being more creative. More on that in a minute. But the scale goes like this: on the one hand, I believe in the Nickelodeon. When I told Andy I was leaving, he asked me some question that prompted me to tell him, entirely honestly, that I've never stopped believing in the Nick. It's not like that at all. But on the other side of that spectrum, I can't believe in terrifically boring clerical work for a boss that I can hardly stand making eye contact with. If there were even one small part of my job that required creativity, I think I'd be much more willing to stick it out. But all I do is pull reports from broken databases, then cobble together multiple busted reports in order to make one half-assed list that's probably only half correct. I ask for newer, better systems only to be denied, and then am blamed for the nature of those lists.
It doesn't help that I'm not active, I have little interaction with anyone outside of the office, and am never thanked for the work I put in. Maybe this is office lifestyle - maybe the kind of passive-aggressive cruelty we endure is actually totally normal - but either way, I'm not into it. Considering all the stereotypes about the restaurant/food service industry, I've got to say I've been treated much better by customers and employers in food service than by customers and employers in the "real world."
Do I regret giving it a shot? No. I learned so much. Do I regret the way I've handled some of the situations during this period? Absolutely. I covered a lot of that in the last post. Am I afraid that it's going to be difficult moving forward after this job? Yes. I definitely do. All that crap about "a black mark by my name" could still be true, even if I have tried to exit as gracefully as possible. But is there a big weight off, knowing that I'm going somewhere that I'm loved and respected and valued? Yes. More than anything.
You know what jumps out to me first? This line right here: "[Sean is] such a generous man, and the thought of leaving a boss who already loves me and respects me is terrifying." I think there was some amount of prescience on my part there, and as my mom mentioned, a certain amount of doubt that I felt acutely right from the get-go. If I knew that two particular qualities were so important to me - the love and respect of my boss, and a sense that I am accomplished in my field - then why did I leave? Maybe it's as simple as having been caught up in the career-path delusion, which turned out not to be applicable to me anyway when I found out that this job was nothing like a career, and more like a time-filler.
I've really tried to consider what I've learned from this experience. I've weighed my different reasons for being unhappy in this job, trying to figure out which ones were about people and which ones were about the work itself. If I'm perfectly honest, part of it probably had to do with the hours. Oddly, I really enjoy having afternoons to myself, and those three hours I'd get off earlier at Drip left me room to at least consider being more creative. More on that in a minute. But the scale goes like this: on the one hand, I believe in the Nickelodeon. When I told Andy I was leaving, he asked me some question that prompted me to tell him, entirely honestly, that I've never stopped believing in the Nick. It's not like that at all. But on the other side of that spectrum, I can't believe in terrifically boring clerical work for a boss that I can hardly stand making eye contact with. If there were even one small part of my job that required creativity, I think I'd be much more willing to stick it out. But all I do is pull reports from broken databases, then cobble together multiple busted reports in order to make one half-assed list that's probably only half correct. I ask for newer, better systems only to be denied, and then am blamed for the nature of those lists.
It doesn't help that I'm not active, I have little interaction with anyone outside of the office, and am never thanked for the work I put in. Maybe this is office lifestyle - maybe the kind of passive-aggressive cruelty we endure is actually totally normal - but either way, I'm not into it. Considering all the stereotypes about the restaurant/food service industry, I've got to say I've been treated much better by customers and employers in food service than by customers and employers in the "real world."
Do I regret giving it a shot? No. I learned so much. Do I regret the way I've handled some of the situations during this period? Absolutely. I covered a lot of that in the last post. Am I afraid that it's going to be difficult moving forward after this job? Yes. I definitely do. All that crap about "a black mark by my name" could still be true, even if I have tried to exit as gracefully as possible. But is there a big weight off, knowing that I'm going somewhere that I'm loved and respected and valued? Yes. More than anything.
5.18.2012
Major Character Flaw
Once again today, I was reminded of what I consider to be one of my worst character flaws: my inability to speak my mind in stressful situations. There's this part in You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan speaks a truth I've lived by for a long time, where she delineates between two kinds of people. Because of my inability to find this particular scene (and the fact that my parents have the DVD I thought I owned), I'm just going to paraphrase: "there are two kinds of people. The ones who can say exactly the perfect thing in a situation to cut the other person down to size, and the people who can't."
Obviously, bad paraphrasing. Sorry, fans of the best movie ever made.
But the point is, I'm one of the latter kinds of people. No matter what the situation is, no matter how offended I am or will be in the minutes after that situation, the "right" thing to say just never occurs to me just at that moment. In the last few weeks, I've come to loathe that about myself. Kathleen Kelly (of You've Got Mail) has this wonderful breakthrough moment where she says exactly what she wants to say (to the unknown love of her life, of course), but there's never a reason why she suddenly finds this part of her personality. There's no catalyst for her newfound ability to say those mean things that other people can say. How can I get that?
Today I had a run-in with a very irritated older gentleman over the parking situation in the shared Nickelodeon/Immaculate Consumption lot. I had used an accepted parking trick in a completely full lot, and thought I was being courteous by leaving a note on my car directing one to the Nick office. But this older, entitled gentleman with his Mercedes SUV apparently does not park often in the Immac parking lot much and wasn't aware of the general practices, and so when he came outside and saw his car blocked in, he decided to lay on his horn for several minutes rather than trying to solve the issue politely. To be perfectly fair, I've been in his position. And like all parking situations, you calmly look for the owner of the blocking car, and ask that person to move. No threatening, no yelling. It's the downtown area, folks, parking ain't all neat rows anymore. He threatened to tow me next time (ironic, as it was my first time using this move), stared me down as I climbed into my car, and acted totally aggrieved in a completely common situation.
And you know what the really shitty part was? When he asserted that I was never to park that way again, all I said was "yes sir." As he was a complete asshole to me - I can't describe the situation well, or I won't so I don't get mad all over again - all I did was complacently apologize for something that isn't even wrong. And to some extent, by not explaining the unspoken rules of the Immac parking lot, I was actually harming others - when Jordan's car gets towed by this same asshole (he uses that maneuver far more often than I do), I will partially take blame because I never explained to this entitled gentleman how this parking lot works.
I really thought about the situation on the drive home from work, and in that short time became increasingly frustrated. Brian told me to put it out of my mind, but it's not just a single encounter - it's a systemic error. That fact just slays me. When I think about how the stronger people in this world would go about resigning, or how the Heather Bauers of this world would deal with Andy, it really makes me hate that part of my nature that makes me handle situations in the least confrontational way possible. No matter the level of the conflict, I'll go into fight-or-flight mode and just come up with the best way to avoid tension.
How do I crack that code?
Obviously, bad paraphrasing. Sorry, fans of the best movie ever made.
But the point is, I'm one of the latter kinds of people. No matter what the situation is, no matter how offended I am or will be in the minutes after that situation, the "right" thing to say just never occurs to me just at that moment. In the last few weeks, I've come to loathe that about myself. Kathleen Kelly (of You've Got Mail) has this wonderful breakthrough moment where she says exactly what she wants to say (to the unknown love of her life, of course), but there's never a reason why she suddenly finds this part of her personality. There's no catalyst for her newfound ability to say those mean things that other people can say. How can I get that?
Today I had a run-in with a very irritated older gentleman over the parking situation in the shared Nickelodeon/Immaculate Consumption lot. I had used an accepted parking trick in a completely full lot, and thought I was being courteous by leaving a note on my car directing one to the Nick office. But this older, entitled gentleman with his Mercedes SUV apparently does not park often in the Immac parking lot much and wasn't aware of the general practices, and so when he came outside and saw his car blocked in, he decided to lay on his horn for several minutes rather than trying to solve the issue politely. To be perfectly fair, I've been in his position. And like all parking situations, you calmly look for the owner of the blocking car, and ask that person to move. No threatening, no yelling. It's the downtown area, folks, parking ain't all neat rows anymore. He threatened to tow me next time (ironic, as it was my first time using this move), stared me down as I climbed into my car, and acted totally aggrieved in a completely common situation.
And you know what the really shitty part was? When he asserted that I was never to park that way again, all I said was "yes sir." As he was a complete asshole to me - I can't describe the situation well, or I won't so I don't get mad all over again - all I did was complacently apologize for something that isn't even wrong. And to some extent, by not explaining the unspoken rules of the Immac parking lot, I was actually harming others - when Jordan's car gets towed by this same asshole (he uses that maneuver far more often than I do), I will partially take blame because I never explained to this entitled gentleman how this parking lot works.
I really thought about the situation on the drive home from work, and in that short time became increasingly frustrated. Brian told me to put it out of my mind, but it's not just a single encounter - it's a systemic error. That fact just slays me. When I think about how the stronger people in this world would go about resigning, or how the Heather Bauers of this world would deal with Andy, it really makes me hate that part of my nature that makes me handle situations in the least confrontational way possible. No matter the level of the conflict, I'll go into fight-or-flight mode and just come up with the best way to avoid tension.
How do I crack that code?
5.17.2012
Draft of a Resignation Letter?
"I've been thinking through my life a lot lately, and my job, and how those two things tie in together, and I've realized that this job is just not a good fit for me. It's been eight months, and for most of those months I tried harder than I've had to try for a job. Part of that is the environment - which has certainly not been optimal for me - but I'll take the blame for part of it as well.
Either way, I think the best course of action is for me to resign, and for you to find someone with experience and know-how. Training me from scratch may not have been such a good idea after all when you consider that you were simultaneously trying to train yourself how to use those systems. If it wasn't unfair for you to expect me to learn new systems while you were relearning them, it certainly wasn't the best idea.
I'm fairly resolute about leaving - there are days when I think I'm dumb for wanting to, but if I'm really honest with myself, I've been wondering when I would leave almost since I started. It was a countdown until Indie Grits, and now I don't have something important to keep working for. I love Andrew and Isaac, and I love the Nickelodeon and Indie Grits, but you've made it increasingly difficult for me to love the work I do. It's the systems, yes, and the fact that I'm terrible at anticipating you, but it's also the way you treat all of us. When you hired me, you said we'd "work closely together," but that's not at all true. You work far above me and expect me to know what you need without telling me, and you don't respect me enough for it to be anywhere near working "with" me.
I really appreciate you taking a chance on me, even though I'm sure it'll look like a wasted effort to you. I'm sorry I'm leaving before you in a lurch, but I'd be happy to help you train the next one, or write an extensive list of where things are and how I've organized things. I would still love to come to the Nickelodeon and volunteer for Indie Grits, and I hope you won't think of me too harshly for realizing that someone else would do a better job, and I'd do a better job somewhere else."
Can I do this kind of thing in an e-mail?
Either way, I think the best course of action is for me to resign, and for you to find someone with experience and know-how. Training me from scratch may not have been such a good idea after all when you consider that you were simultaneously trying to train yourself how to use those systems. If it wasn't unfair for you to expect me to learn new systems while you were relearning them, it certainly wasn't the best idea.
I'm fairly resolute about leaving - there are days when I think I'm dumb for wanting to, but if I'm really honest with myself, I've been wondering when I would leave almost since I started. It was a countdown until Indie Grits, and now I don't have something important to keep working for. I love Andrew and Isaac, and I love the Nickelodeon and Indie Grits, but you've made it increasingly difficult for me to love the work I do. It's the systems, yes, and the fact that I'm terrible at anticipating you, but it's also the way you treat all of us. When you hired me, you said we'd "work closely together," but that's not at all true. You work far above me and expect me to know what you need without telling me, and you don't respect me enough for it to be anywhere near working "with" me.
I really appreciate you taking a chance on me, even though I'm sure it'll look like a wasted effort to you. I'm sorry I'm leaving before you in a lurch, but I'd be happy to help you train the next one, or write an extensive list of where things are and how I've organized things. I would still love to come to the Nickelodeon and volunteer for Indie Grits, and I hope you won't think of me too harshly for realizing that someone else would do a better job, and I'd do a better job somewhere else."
Can I do this kind of thing in an e-mail?
5.10.2012
Post Office Etiquette
Now that I'm going to the post office literally five days a week, some things have become evident to me about the etiquette that so often goes unrealized at this, the most unconscious of public spaces. I really do believe people just go about their business without really thinking about how they should be acting, but when it's something you deal with every day, sometimes twice a day, you start to have allergic reactions to all the obnoxious people who think their business is more important than yours.
Let's back up just a bit to the pre-post office stage. This pet peeve actually transcends pet peeve and delves straight into terrible driving; I hate when people turn left at the same time someone coming towards them is turning right, just assuming that the person with the right of way is totally fine with staying in the rightmost lane. That is most often not the case at all. A lot of people want to get in the middle or right lane when they turn. Seriously. Just don't do it.
Parking in the post office is always a mess as well. But no matter how much of a mess parking is, I don't ever think it's acceptable to park in a handicapped parking space, then hop out of your car and run inside for a second. Call me old fashioned here, but those spaces are sacred. I cannot think of a single situation at the post office that justifies taking that spot when you clearly don't need it. And it happens so, so often.
It all comes back to a sense of entitlement - and while I may suffer from that same sense on occasion, I like to think I can keep it in check enough to remember things like right of way, politeness in parking, and pedestrian safety. And while some people probably do have more pressing places to be than I do (I won't get fired if I show up five minutes late), it seems like people get so caught up in their own world that they have no time to yield, to acknowledge that all of us are going places and doing things and seeing the world through our own eyes.
If I want to get into the nit-picking details of it, I could mention how people avoid your eyes or even glare at you at the post office. I feel like, in a place like this, it's actually terrifically important to smile at people. It's like a neighborhood - you get to know the cars you park next to at the post office, and by the same token, you should get to know the people that are with you on your "shift."
Let's back up just a bit to the pre-post office stage. This pet peeve actually transcends pet peeve and delves straight into terrible driving; I hate when people turn left at the same time someone coming towards them is turning right, just assuming that the person with the right of way is totally fine with staying in the rightmost lane. That is most often not the case at all. A lot of people want to get in the middle or right lane when they turn. Seriously. Just don't do it.
Parking in the post office is always a mess as well. But no matter how much of a mess parking is, I don't ever think it's acceptable to park in a handicapped parking space, then hop out of your car and run inside for a second. Call me old fashioned here, but those spaces are sacred. I cannot think of a single situation at the post office that justifies taking that spot when you clearly don't need it. And it happens so, so often.
It all comes back to a sense of entitlement - and while I may suffer from that same sense on occasion, I like to think I can keep it in check enough to remember things like right of way, politeness in parking, and pedestrian safety. And while some people probably do have more pressing places to be than I do (I won't get fired if I show up five minutes late), it seems like people get so caught up in their own world that they have no time to yield, to acknowledge that all of us are going places and doing things and seeing the world through our own eyes.
If I want to get into the nit-picking details of it, I could mention how people avoid your eyes or even glare at you at the post office. I feel like, in a place like this, it's actually terrifically important to smile at people. It's like a neighborhood - you get to know the cars you park next to at the post office, and by the same token, you should get to know the people that are with you on your "shift."
5.09.2012
Too Much, All the Time
How do I ever make decisions?
I have a mind of my own - I like to think - but I've learned to pay close attention when people give me counsel. Lately, though, I'm running into some form of cognitive dissonance, when I have too many people telling me too different things. I have a bad habit of completely shutting down in that situation, digging my heels in and waiting for some blinding light to show me the way. So the last few months have been a little bit difficult, and a lot stagnant.
A friend made the point last night that I'm still really young, and this is the time in my life when I have an opportunity to do what I want to do. This really struck home with me. Maybe it's not quite as crazy as flying to Italy tomorrow (ideal), but as simple as spending my afternoons laying on the river reading, or training myself to write an hour a day again. Her implication - or the one I read into it - was that I jumped into adult life a little faster than was absolutely necessary, or maybe just faster than is good for my psyche at this time.
I've got things pretty together right now, though. I've got a wonderful boyfriend that I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with. We have two dogs together (you have to see the way he interacts with Chloe - she's as much his as mine now), a house that we're trying to move out of, and a lovely garden. I'm not saying I would lose those things if I tried this other method, but I would certainly feel less like I deserved it, had worked for it. I'd lose my claim to being a contributing member of society.
What happens if I decide I don't want this responsibility, and walk away? Not the responsibility of "family life," because I like that part, but that false responsibility of having a salary, working set hours, and hating every second of it. What if I decide I don't care about a "career," and decide to be a Five Points rat until Brian and I can go away and find something better to do? Does that mean I'm throwing away my potential or just finding out that my potential doesn't lie in office management?
It's about themes, I suppose - what's the theme by which I want to live the next few years of my life? Do I want to be selfish and "find myself" and try to find happiness externally? Do I want to "start a career" and show my worth here rather than places where I feel I'm actually talented at all?
Here's the bottom line: I want to quit. Is that the worst idea I've ever had? Does what I want actually matter if I'm doing something right?
I have a mind of my own - I like to think - but I've learned to pay close attention when people give me counsel. Lately, though, I'm running into some form of cognitive dissonance, when I have too many people telling me too different things. I have a bad habit of completely shutting down in that situation, digging my heels in and waiting for some blinding light to show me the way. So the last few months have been a little bit difficult, and a lot stagnant.
A friend made the point last night that I'm still really young, and this is the time in my life when I have an opportunity to do what I want to do. This really struck home with me. Maybe it's not quite as crazy as flying to Italy tomorrow (ideal), but as simple as spending my afternoons laying on the river reading, or training myself to write an hour a day again. Her implication - or the one I read into it - was that I jumped into adult life a little faster than was absolutely necessary, or maybe just faster than is good for my psyche at this time.
I've got things pretty together right now, though. I've got a wonderful boyfriend that I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with. We have two dogs together (you have to see the way he interacts with Chloe - she's as much his as mine now), a house that we're trying to move out of, and a lovely garden. I'm not saying I would lose those things if I tried this other method, but I would certainly feel less like I deserved it, had worked for it. I'd lose my claim to being a contributing member of society.
What happens if I decide I don't want this responsibility, and walk away? Not the responsibility of "family life," because I like that part, but that false responsibility of having a salary, working set hours, and hating every second of it. What if I decide I don't care about a "career," and decide to be a Five Points rat until Brian and I can go away and find something better to do? Does that mean I'm throwing away my potential or just finding out that my potential doesn't lie in office management?
It's about themes, I suppose - what's the theme by which I want to live the next few years of my life? Do I want to be selfish and "find myself" and try to find happiness externally? Do I want to "start a career" and show my worth here rather than places where I feel I'm actually talented at all?
Here's the bottom line: I want to quit. Is that the worst idea I've ever had? Does what I want actually matter if I'm doing something right?
10.06.2011
Problems with the Christian Youth
I think I'm fairly well qualified to write on this topic, too - I was one for a very long time. Even if I still believe in God and have fondness for aspects of the religion, I can also fairly well disqualify myself from that category: the "Christian youth" are the ones in YoungLife, who go to MidTown, who wrap their social and religious dealings up so closely that they forget that there's anything else out there.
For a little context, I'm in a wedding right now that requires me spending time not with the cool Christian kids that I used to hang out with (well, two or three of them), but rather the kids that they're hanging out with now. Is it wrong to call a certain set of them "cool" and a certain set . . . definitely not cool? Even if I don't buy into the same set of moral concerns that I used to, and if my actions are no longer driven by emulating Jesus in my daily life, I still live by a certain code that more or less requires me to consider others' feelings and treat people with respect. Sometimes I feel like this self-informed mode of values is far more effective - or maybe it just boils down to the fact that I was raised right.
But one thing that really strikes me, hanging out with a crowd of Christian youth, is that they tend to hide behind their Christian community as a way to avoid being real with anyone on the outside. I know Rachel felt it too, and I'm sure Alyssa was aware of the tension - not going to MidTown, or worse, not going to church at all, means that a lot of girls feel no need to get to know you at all. It's funny, because I felt the same way when I was actually going to MidTown. I guess even within that social strata, there are substrata that allow their members to ostracize people. All the girls I was with last night went to the same service (of the three that I think are still going each Sunday night - there was always a "cool" service to go to), knew the same people, had become close with the same leaders. If you don't know these people and hang out at the same times, clearly you must just be a godless heathen and nobody needs to try to connect with you.
I remember being the same way in high school - in fact, there were several weeks of crying and frustration among my youth group because some people didn't try to welcome new additions, and some people felt unwelcome even after having been there for a while. It's easy to hide behind the mutual friends and events that you can talk about with the people you know, and even easier to write someone off that's from a different circle entirely. When surrounded by your compatriots, you have their collective goodwill and the "us vs. them" mentality - some kind of primal instinct present in troops of monkeys and prides of lions - is strong. Politeness, genuine interest and kindness are unnecessary towards someone who has no tribe present.
This is not to paint myself as a victim, because like I said, I was like that once too. I had my defenses last night that allowed me to express my disinterest in playing that game - the only way to challenge it is to completely deny it - but it just seems vastly unnecessary to want to play the game at this stage in our lives. The concept of "young adult" allows for arrested development and offers what should be fully-fledged adults the ability to worm out of responsibility, both social and religious. Grow up - get a job, find the real world. If church for the youth is mostly about drawing bounds around specific types of people, then something is drastically wrong.
For a little context, I'm in a wedding right now that requires me spending time not with the cool Christian kids that I used to hang out with (well, two or three of them), but rather the kids that they're hanging out with now. Is it wrong to call a certain set of them "cool" and a certain set . . . definitely not cool? Even if I don't buy into the same set of moral concerns that I used to, and if my actions are no longer driven by emulating Jesus in my daily life, I still live by a certain code that more or less requires me to consider others' feelings and treat people with respect. Sometimes I feel like this self-informed mode of values is far more effective - or maybe it just boils down to the fact that I was raised right.
But one thing that really strikes me, hanging out with a crowd of Christian youth, is that they tend to hide behind their Christian community as a way to avoid being real with anyone on the outside. I know Rachel felt it too, and I'm sure Alyssa was aware of the tension - not going to MidTown, or worse, not going to church at all, means that a lot of girls feel no need to get to know you at all. It's funny, because I felt the same way when I was actually going to MidTown. I guess even within that social strata, there are substrata that allow their members to ostracize people. All the girls I was with last night went to the same service (of the three that I think are still going each Sunday night - there was always a "cool" service to go to), knew the same people, had become close with the same leaders. If you don't know these people and hang out at the same times, clearly you must just be a godless heathen and nobody needs to try to connect with you.
I remember being the same way in high school - in fact, there were several weeks of crying and frustration among my youth group because some people didn't try to welcome new additions, and some people felt unwelcome even after having been there for a while. It's easy to hide behind the mutual friends and events that you can talk about with the people you know, and even easier to write someone off that's from a different circle entirely. When surrounded by your compatriots, you have their collective goodwill and the "us vs. them" mentality - some kind of primal instinct present in troops of monkeys and prides of lions - is strong. Politeness, genuine interest and kindness are unnecessary towards someone who has no tribe present.
This is not to paint myself as a victim, because like I said, I was like that once too. I had my defenses last night that allowed me to express my disinterest in playing that game - the only way to challenge it is to completely deny it - but it just seems vastly unnecessary to want to play the game at this stage in our lives. The concept of "young adult" allows for arrested development and offers what should be fully-fledged adults the ability to worm out of responsibility, both social and religious. Grow up - get a job, find the real world. If church for the youth is mostly about drawing bounds around specific types of people, then something is drastically wrong.
10.05.2011
Open Letter to Managers
I've done something similar to this before - talking about my frustration with managers. I don't know if it's because I have a natural desire to delegate and make things happen my way, or if I just am my mother's daughter, but I have very strong feelings about certain parts of . . . any job, really. No matter what the situation, or the circumstances in the job, I get frustrated when people do things in a way that seem ineffective or inefficient to me.
It doesn't take long for me to feel strongly about the concept of "efficient," either; within a few weeks of beginning work - really, right about when I've found what I consider to be efficient for myself - I start to get frustrated when people do things in a way that makes them slower or less clean than me. Different doesn't matter - training a girl today, I tried to make it really clear that I mind when you don't attempt to be efficient, not when you do things differently than me.
But all that aside, my pet peeve for the day is when two people - who will go unnamed - do so much "managering" that they force me to carry the bulk of the work. I ranted a little bit to the third manager, who confirmed my frustration and then told me that it's just their ability to rely on me that leads to their inattentiveness. I understand that concept, and it's not a new one to me. Because I can do a lot of things all at once, and reasonably well, managers assume that I don't mind doing many things all at once for several hours at a time. Not the case, friends. Some days I would enjoy not having to push hard to keep up our standard of service. Some days I would really love to be the one who gets to chat people up rather than constantly be moving.
Moral of this story: when you have the same number of managers as you do hourly employees, there are going to be problems. I experienced that with great frustration at Chick-fil-A, where I trained several managers and then had to endure them telling me stupid things to do. I'm actually not great at masking my frustration with things that I could fix if given control of. Or being the one who's admired for doing things quickly and in a friendly fashion, but then not being listened to or helped.
And I know how all this sounds - like I'm really arrogant. But in all seriousness, Sean tells me every day how much of a void is going to be left when I leave, and I know it's true. I pay attention. That's more than I can say for a lot of people. I guess this is the other side of the coin from last week's blog - this is my I-love-you-but-can't-stand-you-sometimes letter to Drip.
It doesn't take long for me to feel strongly about the concept of "efficient," either; within a few weeks of beginning work - really, right about when I've found what I consider to be efficient for myself - I start to get frustrated when people do things in a way that makes them slower or less clean than me. Different doesn't matter - training a girl today, I tried to make it really clear that I mind when you don't attempt to be efficient, not when you do things differently than me.
But all that aside, my pet peeve for the day is when two people - who will go unnamed - do so much "managering" that they force me to carry the bulk of the work. I ranted a little bit to the third manager, who confirmed my frustration and then told me that it's just their ability to rely on me that leads to their inattentiveness. I understand that concept, and it's not a new one to me. Because I can do a lot of things all at once, and reasonably well, managers assume that I don't mind doing many things all at once for several hours at a time. Not the case, friends. Some days I would enjoy not having to push hard to keep up our standard of service. Some days I would really love to be the one who gets to chat people up rather than constantly be moving.
Moral of this story: when you have the same number of managers as you do hourly employees, there are going to be problems. I experienced that with great frustration at Chick-fil-A, where I trained several managers and then had to endure them telling me stupid things to do. I'm actually not great at masking my frustration with things that I could fix if given control of. Or being the one who's admired for doing things quickly and in a friendly fashion, but then not being listened to or helped.
And I know how all this sounds - like I'm really arrogant. But in all seriousness, Sean tells me every day how much of a void is going to be left when I leave, and I know it's true. I pay attention. That's more than I can say for a lot of people. I guess this is the other side of the coin from last week's blog - this is my I-love-you-but-can't-stand-you-sometimes letter to Drip.
9.29.2011
Transitions
The title, which is, obviously, the story of my life. All the time transitioning from one thing to another - I guess this phase of my life is just comprised of changes. Steadily, things are changing for me, in ways I both like and don't like. I guess mostly ways that I think are beneficial, but that doesn't mean I find them comfortable. When have I ever been comfortable with changes?
I know it's been a long time since I've written, but I also know most of you are familiar with my circumstances. I'm sorry I haven't written more about Drip, really. Drip is . . . my ideal, in a lot of ways. And in a lot of ways, this may be my farewell love letter to it.
I love just about everything about this little coffee shop - the polished marble with that oh-so-particular early-morning shimmer; the dark wood tables that we buff every few hours with love; the large-pane windows that give the place such a wonderful natural glow. The aesthetics of the place are, without a doubt, the most wonderful thing I've ever seen. Watching coffee drip into a Hario, silhouetted against the cool morning light, is a somehow cinematic experience. Every time I walk into the place, I want to shoot a movie. Aside from everything aesthetically beautiful, the people are really what I will miss the most. At any point, I can go back in and look at that place. Probably shoot that movie, too - Sean remains my biggest fan, and has offered me a shift or two a week. He's such a generous man, and the thought of leaving a boss who already loves me and respects me is terrifying.
All of my co-workers have their flaws - they're crazy or they're frantic or they're passive aggressive - but I love each one of them and will dearly miss them. The bonding that occurs between people struggling to keep up with a giant mass of customers is priceless; it's a kind of in-the-trenches camaraderie that then quickly gives way to a comfortable joking when business becomes slow. We're a tiny family, by far the smallest I've ever been a part of, but one that I'm proud to have been accepted into. Leaving that family, after such a short but strong relationship was forged, breaks my heart. But the offer came in, and was too good to say no to. The only thing less than desirable about it was the timing, and my love for Sean and Drip had to be tempered by the fact that this sort of opportunity only comes around once in a decade. Someone has to die for the Nickelodeon to take resumes, and the odds of the Nickelodeon offering you a job out of the blue without you having actually turned in a resume? One in a million.
Even if the offer hadn't been massively flattering - Andy told me he wasn't interviewing anyone else unless I declined the position - it's the sort of thing that is either so awesome that it delays your grad school plans, or makes your grad school application look a thousand times better. Are you trying to apply to a Film and Digital Media Studies program? Everything about your application looks the same as everyone else's . . . except for the fantastic letters of recommendation and the five times you drop that you worked for one of the top independent non-profit theaters in the Southeast. Oh, and that you were deeply involved several years in a row with the renowned Indie Grits Film Festival. I agonized. I guess I agonized less over the decision - which was more or less made the moment Andy and I walked into Hunter Gatherer - and more over the fact that I was leaving my ultimate comfort zone.
It's not just that I love this job. It's also that I'm damn good at it. I'm not just being arrogant here, but I understand the mechanics of it. I'm good at the busy moments, as I can multi-task. I'm good during the slow moments, because I'm personable and I can jump right in for conversations. I make good drinks and I take pride in the job. Everything about it is in my comfort zone. Andy asked me pointedly if I was ready to start a 9 to 5 job where I'd spend lots of time in a windowless computer room ("I worked at the Film Archive for a year," I said, which got a good laugh), and even as I was saying yes, I was wondering if the answer was really no. The first week at Drip presented me with a bit of a learning curve, but this is a different curve entirely. Nothing about this will be familiar. Not the software, not the job description, not the people. Yes, of course I'm scared.
It is important to note that I have attained the holy grail, though - a job in the field I graduated in. Less than six months after graduating, no less. Getting back to the point, I want to say a few things about the customers: the people that I can't build relationships with any longer. Co-workers I can text and hang out with. The customers, the ones who I spoke to only for a moment or two every day, are the ones I will miss the most, in a way.
Every morning when Whitney came in, as I was pulling shots and handing her skim iced latte to her, I slowly built that relationship. She doesn't sit at the bar - she's not easy to get to know in the same way. But those little moments, like when she told me about her daughter's fourth birthday breakfast, mean a lot in this world. Marty has become important too - along with his sweet wife who has somehow managed to have five children (under the age of 11) and still look perfectly gorgeous and fit, and his three year-old son with disheveled blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. Marty gets a large coffee, and often one for his lady, and even though he's some sort of big-shot businessman or lawmaker or some such with monograms on his shirts and computer case, he takes a moment to connect with us. Or Jessica and Jame, who are board members at the Nick and two of the most loving, genuine people I've met. They came in two days ago to celebrate their ninth anniversary ("nine years of bliss," they both said), congratulated me on my new job, told me stories about their adorable kids.
Or some of the even more obscure people, like Jo. Jo just started coming in recently, and there's something unmistakably mysterious about her. She's tiny, with straight hair and beautiful dark skin; she speaks very softly and just ordered a small coffee. It's hard to explain what about her is so interesting, but yesterday was the first time I had the opportunity to ask her about herself at all. Or Heyward, the awesome web designer who asks for four shots in his lattes and always shows up at the same events I do. I'm fascinated by his crazy blonde hair, but also by how he's managed to be one of our best customers without us knowing much of anything about him.
Maybe the moral of this story is that Drip has reminded me that I like people. Cool Beans drew a frustrating crowd, college made me lose a lot of respect for people in my age range, and New York was just overwhelmingly over-peopled. But Drip was sort of the opposite experience for me - it made me remember that there's an art to food service and to connecting with people. There's just something so priceless about those moments of human connection between relative strangers. I'll miss that more than anything.
I know it's been a long time since I've written, but I also know most of you are familiar with my circumstances. I'm sorry I haven't written more about Drip, really. Drip is . . . my ideal, in a lot of ways. And in a lot of ways, this may be my farewell love letter to it.
I love just about everything about this little coffee shop - the polished marble with that oh-so-particular early-morning shimmer; the dark wood tables that we buff every few hours with love; the large-pane windows that give the place such a wonderful natural glow. The aesthetics of the place are, without a doubt, the most wonderful thing I've ever seen. Watching coffee drip into a Hario, silhouetted against the cool morning light, is a somehow cinematic experience. Every time I walk into the place, I want to shoot a movie. Aside from everything aesthetically beautiful, the people are really what I will miss the most. At any point, I can go back in and look at that place. Probably shoot that movie, too - Sean remains my biggest fan, and has offered me a shift or two a week. He's such a generous man, and the thought of leaving a boss who already loves me and respects me is terrifying.
All of my co-workers have their flaws - they're crazy or they're frantic or they're passive aggressive - but I love each one of them and will dearly miss them. The bonding that occurs between people struggling to keep up with a giant mass of customers is priceless; it's a kind of in-the-trenches camaraderie that then quickly gives way to a comfortable joking when business becomes slow. We're a tiny family, by far the smallest I've ever been a part of, but one that I'm proud to have been accepted into. Leaving that family, after such a short but strong relationship was forged, breaks my heart. But the offer came in, and was too good to say no to. The only thing less than desirable about it was the timing, and my love for Sean and Drip had to be tempered by the fact that this sort of opportunity only comes around once in a decade. Someone has to die for the Nickelodeon to take resumes, and the odds of the Nickelodeon offering you a job out of the blue without you having actually turned in a resume? One in a million.
Even if the offer hadn't been massively flattering - Andy told me he wasn't interviewing anyone else unless I declined the position - it's the sort of thing that is either so awesome that it delays your grad school plans, or makes your grad school application look a thousand times better. Are you trying to apply to a Film and Digital Media Studies program? Everything about your application looks the same as everyone else's . . . except for the fantastic letters of recommendation and the five times you drop that you worked for one of the top independent non-profit theaters in the Southeast. Oh, and that you were deeply involved several years in a row with the renowned Indie Grits Film Festival. I agonized. I guess I agonized less over the decision - which was more or less made the moment Andy and I walked into Hunter Gatherer - and more over the fact that I was leaving my ultimate comfort zone.
It's not just that I love this job. It's also that I'm damn good at it. I'm not just being arrogant here, but I understand the mechanics of it. I'm good at the busy moments, as I can multi-task. I'm good during the slow moments, because I'm personable and I can jump right in for conversations. I make good drinks and I take pride in the job. Everything about it is in my comfort zone. Andy asked me pointedly if I was ready to start a 9 to 5 job where I'd spend lots of time in a windowless computer room ("I worked at the Film Archive for a year," I said, which got a good laugh), and even as I was saying yes, I was wondering if the answer was really no. The first week at Drip presented me with a bit of a learning curve, but this is a different curve entirely. Nothing about this will be familiar. Not the software, not the job description, not the people. Yes, of course I'm scared.
It is important to note that I have attained the holy grail, though - a job in the field I graduated in. Less than six months after graduating, no less. Getting back to the point, I want to say a few things about the customers: the people that I can't build relationships with any longer. Co-workers I can text and hang out with. The customers, the ones who I spoke to only for a moment or two every day, are the ones I will miss the most, in a way.
Every morning when Whitney came in, as I was pulling shots and handing her skim iced latte to her, I slowly built that relationship. She doesn't sit at the bar - she's not easy to get to know in the same way. But those little moments, like when she told me about her daughter's fourth birthday breakfast, mean a lot in this world. Marty has become important too - along with his sweet wife who has somehow managed to have five children (under the age of 11) and still look perfectly gorgeous and fit, and his three year-old son with disheveled blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. Marty gets a large coffee, and often one for his lady, and even though he's some sort of big-shot businessman or lawmaker or some such with monograms on his shirts and computer case, he takes a moment to connect with us. Or Jessica and Jame, who are board members at the Nick and two of the most loving, genuine people I've met. They came in two days ago to celebrate their ninth anniversary ("nine years of bliss," they both said), congratulated me on my new job, told me stories about their adorable kids.
Or some of the even more obscure people, like Jo. Jo just started coming in recently, and there's something unmistakably mysterious about her. She's tiny, with straight hair and beautiful dark skin; she speaks very softly and just ordered a small coffee. It's hard to explain what about her is so interesting, but yesterday was the first time I had the opportunity to ask her about herself at all. Or Heyward, the awesome web designer who asks for four shots in his lattes and always shows up at the same events I do. I'm fascinated by his crazy blonde hair, but also by how he's managed to be one of our best customers without us knowing much of anything about him.
Maybe the moral of this story is that Drip has reminded me that I like people. Cool Beans drew a frustrating crowd, college made me lose a lot of respect for people in my age range, and New York was just overwhelmingly over-peopled. But Drip was sort of the opposite experience for me - it made me remember that there's an art to food service and to connecting with people. There's just something so priceless about those moments of human connection between relative strangers. I'll miss that more than anything.
4.18.2011
thesis voice-over draft 809
Almost a year later, I look back on my summer in New York City with a sometimes crushing sense of nostalgia. At risk of sounding wildly cliche, those memories are some of the most bittersweet that I can imagine. There's a ghost, one comprised of my memories, that follows me around even now. I want you to feel my ghost too - I want you to be left with a sense of haunting in the same way I have. Maybe that's more important than telling the actual story anyway.
So when I tried to write my autobiography - again and again, never capturing what I needed to capture to make it right - that formative summer became dominated by my experience with the trains. I didn't like New York City, just to be clear. But I learned to love the trains almost immediately: those huge iron beasts that are simultaneously so claustrophobic and so freeing. Even when the streets terrified me and my own apartment felt further from home than I ever could have imagined, something about the trains enraptured me. The motion, the rhythm, the way that they have a personality of their own - some dependable, some unreliable, some fast, some clean.
When I saw this footage, the old trains with their own peculiar ghost themselves, I was immediately drawn into a black hole of recollection. I imagine all New Yorkers - natives, transplants, expatriates - feel the same way about trains.
So rather than telling my story, I create for you a ghost. There have been many more interesting stories better told, but I hope to achieve the effect of such a story in a shorter time. I hope you will feel the bittersweet as I do, know the haunting as intimately as I have.
So when I tried to write my autobiography - again and again, never capturing what I needed to capture to make it right - that formative summer became dominated by my experience with the trains. I didn't like New York City, just to be clear. But I learned to love the trains almost immediately: those huge iron beasts that are simultaneously so claustrophobic and so freeing. Even when the streets terrified me and my own apartment felt further from home than I ever could have imagined, something about the trains enraptured me. The motion, the rhythm, the way that they have a personality of their own - some dependable, some unreliable, some fast, some clean.
When I saw this footage, the old trains with their own peculiar ghost themselves, I was immediately drawn into a black hole of recollection. I imagine all New Yorkers - natives, transplants, expatriates - feel the same way about trains.
So rather than telling my story, I create for you a ghost. There have been many more interesting stories better told, but I hope to achieve the effect of such a story in a shorter time. I hope you will feel the bittersweet as I do, know the haunting as intimately as I have.
3.13.2011
Beautiful Sunday
Does it seem funny that, at this point, Daylight Savings is completely taken care of for most of us? My phone adjusts automatically - as do all phones. My computer magically knows the same, the cable box too. The only clock in my life that I have to adjust is the one in my car - which is 18 years old and by industry standards a dinosaur (that I'd have no other way, to be clear). It seems on the verge of being an outdated standard, to my mind - the hour ahead and back has never so much affected how I wake up, and since it changes on a Sunday, most of us just find that we've woken up a little later than normal. Without all the hustle and bustle of changing clocks, what good is Daylight Savings anyway?
Something of note - I am so incredibly productive on weekends when I don't work. If I have Friday and Saturday off, I'm going to get so much done and feel so much better about myself. It's not just spring break that did it, either: there's just a really comforting availability of about 15 daylight hours that is not normally there. For the first time in a while, I feel caught up, even ahead, and as if I can make it through the next couple of weeks of classes with some amount of aplomb.
Today I've had the fun of doing things I wouldn't normally have time and energy to do, too. I've made some French bread loaves for later, given the dog a bath, gotten good feedback on my editing project, gone grocery shopping, and experimented with Brian's fabulous camera and gorgeous lenses. Now if only I can think of summer as being an extended vacation (yes, which it is) and not a breeding ground for my craziness, I could have days like these all the time.
Something of note - I am so incredibly productive on weekends when I don't work. If I have Friday and Saturday off, I'm going to get so much done and feel so much better about myself. It's not just spring break that did it, either: there's just a really comforting availability of about 15 daylight hours that is not normally there. For the first time in a while, I feel caught up, even ahead, and as if I can make it through the next couple of weeks of classes with some amount of aplomb.
Today I've had the fun of doing things I wouldn't normally have time and energy to do, too. I've made some French bread loaves for later, given the dog a bath, gotten good feedback on my editing project, gone grocery shopping, and experimented with Brian's fabulous camera and gorgeous lenses. Now if only I can think of summer as being an extended vacation (yes, which it is) and not a breeding ground for my craziness, I could have days like these all the time.
3.08.2011
Theory Creeping Into My Daily Life
Memories taint everything they touch. The second a memory is formed, be assured that wherever, whenever, whatever it associates with will never - quite - be the same. Brian Rotman's book "Becoming Beside Ourselves" discusses the "ghosted user" projected by every medium, and I'm starting to think that memory is the same. When I walked down the street with my best friend a few weeks ago, taking her to the last birthday party she would have in Columbia, there are a couple of things that stick out to me: my arm in hers, the sound of our boots on the sidewalk, the guys repaving the Bank of America parking lot. And I think that, at least for a little while, every time I walk by that parking lot and wander down that street, a little part of me will snap back to that awesome night.
Do you know what I mean, though? Every time you form a memory, that moment becomes indelible. As if it's not actually the memory so much as the fact that you are in the act of forming one - it's the process, not the product - and this re-perception of memory (versus the "remembering" process that may in fact be false) is triggered more by the fact that it was created in the first place. Mojitos don't taste the same anywhere but New York City. That Senate Street apartment will always give me a rush of memories of waiting and hoping for Brian. The sight of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" will always feel like a moving train for me. Negative memories are the same way, but the less said about those the better. But then again, can any memory actually escape the potential for wistfulness, and thus can any memory truly be happy?
I swing between being terrified that it's so short and being proud that it's so long - I'm onto ten pages of my thesis. Now before you start getting worried, that's ten pages of densely packed information on single-space type. There's so much to elongate and elaborate on, so I'm not so worried about length anymore. And if I add more - about sound, a little more about memory, and some quotes from this blog - I think I'm nearing a decent length for a senior thesis. And the information, dear heavens, is coming close to the point where I lose the ability to keep track of it. I don't know how people can write books. Twenty pages of information is nearly too much for me.
Do you know what I mean, though? Every time you form a memory, that moment becomes indelible. As if it's not actually the memory so much as the fact that you are in the act of forming one - it's the process, not the product - and this re-perception of memory (versus the "remembering" process that may in fact be false) is triggered more by the fact that it was created in the first place. Mojitos don't taste the same anywhere but New York City. That Senate Street apartment will always give me a rush of memories of waiting and hoping for Brian. The sight of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" will always feel like a moving train for me. Negative memories are the same way, but the less said about those the better. But then again, can any memory actually escape the potential for wistfulness, and thus can any memory truly be happy?
I swing between being terrified that it's so short and being proud that it's so long - I'm onto ten pages of my thesis. Now before you start getting worried, that's ten pages of densely packed information on single-space type. There's so much to elongate and elaborate on, so I'm not so worried about length anymore. And if I add more - about sound, a little more about memory, and some quotes from this blog - I think I'm nearing a decent length for a senior thesis. And the information, dear heavens, is coming close to the point where I lose the ability to keep track of it. I don't know how people can write books. Twenty pages of information is nearly too much for me.
2.22.2011
Mostly Pessimistic Thoughts
Sometimes I catch myself reminiscing over little snippets of my New York trip. I've not glamorized it so much yet that I don't remember all the angst and frustration - remember how I hated it, even? - but there are moments and emotions that I still look back on fondly. I remember laying in my top bunk with the breeze blowing against my back from my bay window, and I remember a mixed feeling of helplessness and independence. That's a strong emotion. It's beautiful and tragic all at once, when you feel both like you're accomplishing something amazing but also as though you're right on the verge of being in way over your head. I think that's an emotion that I experience regularly right now. I'm happy, I'm thrilled that things are going the way they are, but I feel as if I'm far too close to the deep end.
This U.S. history class has really shaken my worldview. The awful, atrocious things that America has done absolutely blows my mind. Not even the slavery, the exploitation of women and children, the lynchings and prejudice that lasted well into the 20th century (which seems as if it should have been the pinnacle of modernity). Things like the way we gained Hawaii, for instance. The U.S. government basically set into motion a series of events that they knew would lead to a revolt, and American sugar planters took over the government from the Hawaiian queen. Even some of Teddy Roosevelt's political moves just shock me - I was aware of a lot of the awful things that America has done over the years, but apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.
It's not fair to say that without a nod towards some of the awful things that humanity as an entity has enacted on each other. It's nothing unique to Americans, it's unique to humanity itself. There's an innate kind of cruelty specific to people that even our closest evolutionary relatives don't have. Animals may eat their young, but it's with none of the same malice that the Spaniards tortured people with during the Inquisition. It's disheartening, really.
I have just the most amazing friends and family. In all seriousness, I can't imagine how I would make it without them. Last night, my sister and Casey hauled most of my belongings from my apartment to the new house. Troopers, the both of them, and all I did in return was give them some chocolatey non-coffee. I wish I could really express my thanks in some more meaningful way, other than just to say that I cannot imagine a life without the kind of people that I've been lucky enough to become close with.
I need to start thinking of "Brian's place" as "our place." That's going to be a shift. I'm four days away from having no other place to go, but I still just keep thinking of it as "his place." That's crappy from a personal standpoint, but I also need to learn to take ownership of it just so I can feel like I have something of my own.
This U.S. history class has really shaken my worldview. The awful, atrocious things that America has done absolutely blows my mind. Not even the slavery, the exploitation of women and children, the lynchings and prejudice that lasted well into the 20th century (which seems as if it should have been the pinnacle of modernity). Things like the way we gained Hawaii, for instance. The U.S. government basically set into motion a series of events that they knew would lead to a revolt, and American sugar planters took over the government from the Hawaiian queen. Even some of Teddy Roosevelt's political moves just shock me - I was aware of a lot of the awful things that America has done over the years, but apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.
It's not fair to say that without a nod towards some of the awful things that humanity as an entity has enacted on each other. It's nothing unique to Americans, it's unique to humanity itself. There's an innate kind of cruelty specific to people that even our closest evolutionary relatives don't have. Animals may eat their young, but it's with none of the same malice that the Spaniards tortured people with during the Inquisition. It's disheartening, really.
I have just the most amazing friends and family. In all seriousness, I can't imagine how I would make it without them. Last night, my sister and Casey hauled most of my belongings from my apartment to the new house. Troopers, the both of them, and all I did in return was give them some chocolatey non-coffee. I wish I could really express my thanks in some more meaningful way, other than just to say that I cannot imagine a life without the kind of people that I've been lucky enough to become close with.
I need to start thinking of "Brian's place" as "our place." That's going to be a shift. I'm four days away from having no other place to go, but I still just keep thinking of it as "his place." That's crappy from a personal standpoint, but I also need to learn to take ownership of it just so I can feel like I have something of my own.
2.21.2011
More General Frustrations
I have one of the most pointless, frustrating jobs I've ever imagined. On the few days when I feel some sense of accomplishment or fulfillment, more often than not I'm told that, although I did something correctly, I need to do it again a different way for boss number three. And then halfway through that, I need to do it a third way for boss number four. I've worked places where the communication was heinous - nonexistent - but this more or less trumps them all. I'm all tied up by red tape, and anytime I do anything at all, I'm constantly afraid that someone else in a higher position than me is going to demand that I do it again, differently.
Bureaucracy and politics may, in fact, be the root of all evil. Not even state and federal politics (that one's a given), but just interpersonal politics that make all kinds of little things difficult. Or maybe my world is just too small - that's entirely possible. When all of the important people in your life know each other as closely as you know them, or closer, you're stuck in situations where you know more about each of those people than you want to know, and your role in the middle essentially boils down to "damned if you do, damned if you don't." I can't make everyone happy in this situation, and the real problem is that it's my fault for allowing myself to slip in the middle. Stupid, stupid.
My commitment - no, that's not the right word. My drive tends to waver or fade depending on certain circumstances. Being sick for so long certainly didn't help. I got sick, am still a little sick, and can't focus on anything simple for very long, much less Foucault and Freud through a feminist theory lens. Also the aforementioned situation leaves me feeling . . . an aversion. When I'm disillusioned by something (an easy task, as I'm sure is evident by this point), I feel far less desire to get things done. That's such a character flaw. I need to find my own drive and stop relying on others'.
This thesis is starting to really overwhelm me. I was sent back some revisions today, and although I'd totally expected an entire wall of blue to take over my three pages of notes, there were questions on there that, as far as I know, have no answers. Here's an example: "And this he means neurophysiologically, yes? In which case, you think of it in terms of the performative (a la Butler)." Oy. Butler confuses me, neurophysiology confuses me, and performativity (although Brian is currently ensconced in its grasp) confuses me. I'm learning, and so help me I'll have all of this at least tenuously in my head by tomorrow, but it's a brutal realization when your thesis no longer makes any sense to you.
Bureaucracy and politics may, in fact, be the root of all evil. Not even state and federal politics (that one's a given), but just interpersonal politics that make all kinds of little things difficult. Or maybe my world is just too small - that's entirely possible. When all of the important people in your life know each other as closely as you know them, or closer, you're stuck in situations where you know more about each of those people than you want to know, and your role in the middle essentially boils down to "damned if you do, damned if you don't." I can't make everyone happy in this situation, and the real problem is that it's my fault for allowing myself to slip in the middle. Stupid, stupid.
My commitment - no, that's not the right word. My drive tends to waver or fade depending on certain circumstances. Being sick for so long certainly didn't help. I got sick, am still a little sick, and can't focus on anything simple for very long, much less Foucault and Freud through a feminist theory lens. Also the aforementioned situation leaves me feeling . . . an aversion. When I'm disillusioned by something (an easy task, as I'm sure is evident by this point), I feel far less desire to get things done. That's such a character flaw. I need to find my own drive and stop relying on others'.
This thesis is starting to really overwhelm me. I was sent back some revisions today, and although I'd totally expected an entire wall of blue to take over my three pages of notes, there were questions on there that, as far as I know, have no answers. Here's an example: "And this he means neurophysiologically, yes? In which case, you think of it in terms of the performative (a la Butler)." Oy. Butler confuses me, neurophysiology confuses me, and performativity (although Brian is currently ensconced in its grasp) confuses me. I'm learning, and so help me I'll have all of this at least tenuously in my head by tomorrow, but it's a brutal realization when your thesis no longer makes any sense to you.
2.20.2011
Moving Woes
I get bizarrely melancholy whenever I move. It doesn't matter if I'm moving somewhere better (which I clearly am) or whether the circumstances are sort of forcing me into it - the fact that I'm ending a chapter of my life, and beginning another chapter, breaks a little piece of my heart. I know it makes no sense, but once I've become used to the circumstances I'm in, the idea of changing them goes against everything in me. Maybe each apartment is an incarnation of me - a little part of me that I'm leaving behind. Or maybe each of my apartments have been a manifestation of my personality, so moving out feels like a slow deconstruction. Whether or not I can put my finger on it, the melancholy, the reminiscence still looms large whenever I start putting belongings in boxes.
I think I'm going to change this blog around, and hopefully can start channeling some of my terror towards this (more constructive) venue. First of all, clearly I don't live in Brooklyn anymore. So I think it's important to label more what it is - "Theories on Life of a Soon-To-Be College Graduate," or something to that effect. All of my life that isn't concerned with finishing my thesis and keeping a half-step ahead of my classes is now concerned with figuring out how to cope with the crushing weight of my future. And those are just on days when I'm not constantly asking myself "why did I choose this major? Why am I not in the business school? What possessed me to go into the arts?"
Taking a break from the complaining for a moment, I'd like to mention that Brian has been so incredibly supportive through all of this. I know by this point he has little desire to talk through all of my life issues - that do pertain to him, but that don't get a lot easier even when you agonize over them - but every time I want to talk it over, he's game for it. He's told me that it's not over if I move, but that if I want to go somewhere else I could, and should. He's told me that if I want to go to grad school in another state, he'd have no problem going with me so long as that school had a decent rhetoric program. I don't know what I did to deserve him - no, actually, I know I never could have done anything great enough to deserve him - but I'm so intensely grateful for the crazy set of coincidences that led us to each other. I hope I'm half as good to him as he is to me.
Oh Sarah. Congratulations, dear one, on getting into your top school. I am so very happy for you - you deserve everything good that's about to come your way. Thank you for always listening when I'm frustrated or scared, for always supporting my crazy ideas (encouraging certain TA-baiting ones), for always being a great friend. I know what you're going through, all the anxiety that comes from moving to a brand new city, and I hope I can help you through it as much as you helped me, although I know you won't need it.
Where does a film studies major even start to find a job?
I think I'm going to change this blog around, and hopefully can start channeling some of my terror towards this (more constructive) venue. First of all, clearly I don't live in Brooklyn anymore. So I think it's important to label more what it is - "Theories on Life of a Soon-To-Be College Graduate," or something to that effect. All of my life that isn't concerned with finishing my thesis and keeping a half-step ahead of my classes is now concerned with figuring out how to cope with the crushing weight of my future. And those are just on days when I'm not constantly asking myself "why did I choose this major? Why am I not in the business school? What possessed me to go into the arts?"
Taking a break from the complaining for a moment, I'd like to mention that Brian has been so incredibly supportive through all of this. I know by this point he has little desire to talk through all of my life issues - that do pertain to him, but that don't get a lot easier even when you agonize over them - but every time I want to talk it over, he's game for it. He's told me that it's not over if I move, but that if I want to go somewhere else I could, and should. He's told me that if I want to go to grad school in another state, he'd have no problem going with me so long as that school had a decent rhetoric program. I don't know what I did to deserve him - no, actually, I know I never could have done anything great enough to deserve him - but I'm so intensely grateful for the crazy set of coincidences that led us to each other. I hope I'm half as good to him as he is to me.
Oh Sarah. Congratulations, dear one, on getting into your top school. I am so very happy for you - you deserve everything good that's about to come your way. Thank you for always listening when I'm frustrated or scared, for always supporting my crazy ideas (encouraging certain TA-baiting ones), for always being a great friend. I know what you're going through, all the anxiety that comes from moving to a brand new city, and I hope I can help you through it as much as you helped me, although I know you won't need it.
Where does a film studies major even start to find a job?
10.25.2010
What if I'm beautiful and I'm intelligent, but I'm neurotic as hell and no one will ever be able to truly accept my crazy? What if people can project whatever they want to on me, and they see the awesome girl that they want when in fact I'm just as ugly and frustrating as any other girl on the inside? What if I find myself in my underwear obsessively cleaning my house and trying not to look in the mirrors because I'm suddenly unhappy with my body? What if I lose the best thing in my life because every now and then, inexplicably, I have to really work not to randomly cry? There's a distinct terror in not knowing whether you're normal or not.
Heidi gave me the most brilliant, perfect way to make my senior thesis interesting again. I can't even tell you how much of a weight that is off my mind. It also gives me an opportunity to do something that is somewhat unheard of in arts programs - debut a failed project. Basically what she wants me to do is to use the video I shot in New York in conjunction with the blogs that I wrote on the same days, and if possible, the texts from those days as well. I show essentially how the video failed me, and that for my purposes in my particular time, text was the better medium. While it is in fact undoing a lot of the things that Brian's working to do in his PhD program, it really makes my project not only more interesting to me, but more original in general. It's such the better plan - I'm quite excited now.
Chainsaw noises behind my house again. There are nights when I'm none too comfortable coming home to my little ghetto apartment in crackhead-land.
I think sometimes it's incredibly obvious when I've been splitting up my blogs - when one part was begun one night and the next part was written the next day. Some of this is intensely personal, and sometimes I think I shouldn't post it.
Heidi gave me the most brilliant, perfect way to make my senior thesis interesting again. I can't even tell you how much of a weight that is off my mind. It also gives me an opportunity to do something that is somewhat unheard of in arts programs - debut a failed project. Basically what she wants me to do is to use the video I shot in New York in conjunction with the blogs that I wrote on the same days, and if possible, the texts from those days as well. I show essentially how the video failed me, and that for my purposes in my particular time, text was the better medium. While it is in fact undoing a lot of the things that Brian's working to do in his PhD program, it really makes my project not only more interesting to me, but more original in general. It's such the better plan - I'm quite excited now.
Chainsaw noises behind my house again. There are nights when I'm none too comfortable coming home to my little ghetto apartment in crackhead-land.
I think sometimes it's incredibly obvious when I've been splitting up my blogs - when one part was begun one night and the next part was written the next day. Some of this is intensely personal, and sometimes I think I shouldn't post it.
10.20.2010
Musings Over a Few Days
Check out this quote by Michel Foucault (my new forced philosopher of choice):
"My problem is essentially the definition of the implicit systems in which we find ourselves prisoners; what I would like to grasp is the system of limits and exclusion which we practice without knowing it; I would like to make the cultural unconscious apparent. Therefore, the more I travel, the more I remove myself from my natural and habitual centers of gravity, the greater the chance of my grasping the foundations I am obliviously standing on. To that extent any trip - not of course in the sense of a sightseeing trip nor even a survey - any movement away from my original frame of reference, is fruitful."
This is an incredible, succinct explanation to why the distance, the chaos of New York was so inspiring for writing. I was everyday forced to examine those ideologies and assumptions that I stand on - that we all stand on, differently - because it was so far removed from my normal, even from the circumstances and situations that *built* my ideologies and assumptions. It's really an incredible quote, and the more I look at it, the more I realize why the inspiration, the wonder that was New York completely faded when I came back here. Honestly, it's bizarre how quickly I fell back into South Carolina. Rapidly, mercilessly, like I hadn't missed a beat. Maybe for a split second my ideologies were challenged by familiar sights after an unfamiliar period of time, but it was incredibly brief. I was already back in my South Carolina mindset by the time I'd spent my first night back.
There's nothing quite as wonderful as having someone to believe in you more than you believe in yourself.
So it's pet peeve time. If this blog were called "Rachel's Pet Peeve of the Day," it would much more easily be a daily post. I know a lot of you love me maybe not for my snark, but at least along with my snark, so here goes: entitled people. Entitled people irritate me to no end. I hope to God that when it's all said and done, people can say that I was at least thankful for all the things I was given. I don't deny that I've been given many things in my life, but I dearly hope that I've expressed my gratefulness for them in most of those cases. Here's the thing, though - don't walk into my coffee shop thinking that my only purpose in this world is to serve you. Don't come in with daddy's credit card, run up a twenty dollar bill, and the conveniently forget to tip. Or even just look up from your cell phone for a second, make eye contact with me, and thank me for the time I've taken to make you that fancy coffee drink that you think you need. Courtesy, people. It's not that difficult. Throw me a bone.
"My problem is essentially the definition of the implicit systems in which we find ourselves prisoners; what I would like to grasp is the system of limits and exclusion which we practice without knowing it; I would like to make the cultural unconscious apparent. Therefore, the more I travel, the more I remove myself from my natural and habitual centers of gravity, the greater the chance of my grasping the foundations I am obliviously standing on. To that extent any trip - not of course in the sense of a sightseeing trip nor even a survey - any movement away from my original frame of reference, is fruitful."
This is an incredible, succinct explanation to why the distance, the chaos of New York was so inspiring for writing. I was everyday forced to examine those ideologies and assumptions that I stand on - that we all stand on, differently - because it was so far removed from my normal, even from the circumstances and situations that *built* my ideologies and assumptions. It's really an incredible quote, and the more I look at it, the more I realize why the inspiration, the wonder that was New York completely faded when I came back here. Honestly, it's bizarre how quickly I fell back into South Carolina. Rapidly, mercilessly, like I hadn't missed a beat. Maybe for a split second my ideologies were challenged by familiar sights after an unfamiliar period of time, but it was incredibly brief. I was already back in my South Carolina mindset by the time I'd spent my first night back.
There's nothing quite as wonderful as having someone to believe in you more than you believe in yourself.
So it's pet peeve time. If this blog were called "Rachel's Pet Peeve of the Day," it would much more easily be a daily post. I know a lot of you love me maybe not for my snark, but at least along with my snark, so here goes: entitled people. Entitled people irritate me to no end. I hope to God that when it's all said and done, people can say that I was at least thankful for all the things I was given. I don't deny that I've been given many things in my life, but I dearly hope that I've expressed my gratefulness for them in most of those cases. Here's the thing, though - don't walk into my coffee shop thinking that my only purpose in this world is to serve you. Don't come in with daddy's credit card, run up a twenty dollar bill, and the conveniently forget to tip. Or even just look up from your cell phone for a second, make eye contact with me, and thank me for the time I've taken to make you that fancy coffee drink that you think you need. Courtesy, people. It's not that difficult. Throw me a bone.
School . . . Future . . . Eww
I find that professors are often the only people smart enough to know when I really think they're stupid. Thus I've never been popular with the professors that I was not impressed with intellectually - Elizabeth Hoffman is a good example (yep, we're naming names). Oddly enough, my fellow students can rarely tell when I think they're absolutely idiotic, but the professors always seem to have a fairly good sense of when I can't stand them. I think many things about me can be falsified, but my eyes don't lie. When I hate you, you know. That's part of the reason why I didn't break the A in my last history class - my TA was, legitimately, an idiot, and she could tell that I knew it. The first day of class she asks, "what can maps tell us?" And I wanted to break out my Benedict Anderson film theory and show her the what-for. She then proceeded to grade all my papers harshly because she didn't like me. Swear to God.
There are days when I feel - intensely - like I'm riding on the coattails of much greater and more talented people. Brian's the obvious example. The next three or four years for me will be both an opportunity to distinguish myself from the excellent company I keep, but also to deserve that company. At the moment, I'm fairly certain I've just stumbled into it. I'd like to earn it. What happens come April will fairly well decide the course of the next few years, and while I'm a little depressed that those glad tidings won't be coming for me, I'm still happy that I have some semblance of a plan. Although that plan reads "follow Brian to _____" at the moment.
I had a short discussion with him about it about a week ago - I told him that it's comforting for me to be able to rest on what he's going to do, in some odd way. If he goes to India, I'm given a circumstance like New York, but more intense and hopefully more inspiring. I don't know if I'll flourish or languish there, but either way I'll have done something intensely new. That's so much pressure to put on him, though. I'm asking him to support me (emotionally, less so monetarily), and be comfortable with the idea of me following him wherever the next few years take him. I hope against all odds that I'll find some way to create my own good luck, but for me, having any semblance of a plan helps.
Senioritis has certainly struck. I'm making it - for the most part - and in fact got my first A on a film paper since taking exclusively Susan Courtney film classes. I was ecstatic, for the record. I'm making better grades this semester than last - at least so far - but I just find myself having to force myself to try a little more than last time. Last semester was my shining beacon, but I guess I've said that more than once.
So that was my school/future bitching session. Expect one on work in the near future. Maybe tomorrow night.
There are days when I feel - intensely - like I'm riding on the coattails of much greater and more talented people. Brian's the obvious example. The next three or four years for me will be both an opportunity to distinguish myself from the excellent company I keep, but also to deserve that company. At the moment, I'm fairly certain I've just stumbled into it. I'd like to earn it. What happens come April will fairly well decide the course of the next few years, and while I'm a little depressed that those glad tidings won't be coming for me, I'm still happy that I have some semblance of a plan. Although that plan reads "follow Brian to _____" at the moment.
I had a short discussion with him about it about a week ago - I told him that it's comforting for me to be able to rest on what he's going to do, in some odd way. If he goes to India, I'm given a circumstance like New York, but more intense and hopefully more inspiring. I don't know if I'll flourish or languish there, but either way I'll have done something intensely new. That's so much pressure to put on him, though. I'm asking him to support me (emotionally, less so monetarily), and be comfortable with the idea of me following him wherever the next few years take him. I hope against all odds that I'll find some way to create my own good luck, but for me, having any semblance of a plan helps.
Senioritis has certainly struck. I'm making it - for the most part - and in fact got my first A on a film paper since taking exclusively Susan Courtney film classes. I was ecstatic, for the record. I'm making better grades this semester than last - at least so far - but I just find myself having to force myself to try a little more than last time. Last semester was my shining beacon, but I guess I've said that more than once.
So that was my school/future bitching session. Expect one on work in the near future. Maybe tomorrow night.
9.25.2010
I've started probably ten blogs in the last month - since the last one I wrote? - and ended up dropping all of them. Now that I'm here, my topics are about things and people here. Often Brian, but most of the time I discard those because I think he'd blush over the adoring way I write about him, and I'd probably blush over allowing anyone to know the lovestruck way I think about him. I've started a few about school, but this semester just hasn't been inspiring in any actual scholastic ways. I've thought about writing some about the Film Archive, but most of what inspires me there are the old film reels that I bring home and attach to my walls. I don't know if I should be worried because I'm stagnating, but I think I'm going to try to head that off before it begins. More on that later.
The city that you live in is always bigger than you think it is. More layers, more niches, more places to go that you didn't know existed - partially because, once you're in a place long enough, you forget to really look around you. Everything in life is like that to some extent, I think. You live anywhere, see anything, do anything long enough, and it becomes such second nature that you forget to pay attention to it. I feel like part of living life "fully" (if you'll forgive me using such a cliched term) is learning to periodically delve back into the simple, mundane functions that make up our lives. Part of that, for me, is just walking through a neighborhood that I most often drive through. Walking and driving are so fundamentally different to start with. When you're driving, you're watching traffic patterns and stoplights and thinking about fast ways to get where you're going. When you're walking, even walking with a destination in mind, you see the buildings and notice what's in them and study all the ins and outs of the area around you. Even having to be aware of potentially dangerous situations is intrinsically different from the way you interact with your surroundings in a car. This particularly intrigued me today walking around Brian's neighborhood, noticing how few buildings on Devine I really know the purpose of - there are office buildings, residential areas, and shops on the side of Devine that I had only assumed was . . . actually, I'd never even really considered it. Case in point.
I'm bad about stagnating. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I've always had significant problems staying interested in . . . anything, really, without sustained stimulation. I can't say it's exactly intellectual, but there's something that I sometimes find lacking - most especially during the summer - that destroys my ability to function well. Maybe it's senioritis, or maybe this semester really is just lacking in some way, but I need something to yank me out of this weird haze that I'm in. I'm incredibly happy, but after last semester, when I was interested and engaged in school, this semester's a little bit frustrating. I've been presented with what might be an opportunity to break free of that, as long as I have the nerve to go ahead with it. But even so, contacting the person you pretty much worship in order to ask for some kind of mentor relationship is pretty daunting.
Anyway. Let's hope I can keep writing some.
The city that you live in is always bigger than you think it is. More layers, more niches, more places to go that you didn't know existed - partially because, once you're in a place long enough, you forget to really look around you. Everything in life is like that to some extent, I think. You live anywhere, see anything, do anything long enough, and it becomes such second nature that you forget to pay attention to it. I feel like part of living life "fully" (if you'll forgive me using such a cliched term) is learning to periodically delve back into the simple, mundane functions that make up our lives. Part of that, for me, is just walking through a neighborhood that I most often drive through. Walking and driving are so fundamentally different to start with. When you're driving, you're watching traffic patterns and stoplights and thinking about fast ways to get where you're going. When you're walking, even walking with a destination in mind, you see the buildings and notice what's in them and study all the ins and outs of the area around you. Even having to be aware of potentially dangerous situations is intrinsically different from the way you interact with your surroundings in a car. This particularly intrigued me today walking around Brian's neighborhood, noticing how few buildings on Devine I really know the purpose of - there are office buildings, residential areas, and shops on the side of Devine that I had only assumed was . . . actually, I'd never even really considered it. Case in point.
I'm bad about stagnating. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I've always had significant problems staying interested in . . . anything, really, without sustained stimulation. I can't say it's exactly intellectual, but there's something that I sometimes find lacking - most especially during the summer - that destroys my ability to function well. Maybe it's senioritis, or maybe this semester really is just lacking in some way, but I need something to yank me out of this weird haze that I'm in. I'm incredibly happy, but after last semester, when I was interested and engaged in school, this semester's a little bit frustrating. I've been presented with what might be an opportunity to break free of that, as long as I have the nerve to go ahead with it. But even so, contacting the person you pretty much worship in order to ask for some kind of mentor relationship is pretty daunting.
Anyway. Let's hope I can keep writing some.
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