Freeze

The first blizzard of the year is making its way south, punching Kirksville in its skinny-ass torso, and watching the thermometer drop degree by degree is making me dread leaving work here at Grim.  Grim.  I’ve seen all of two people here today–three if you count that one person came twice to get quarters.  It’s a very hopeless kind of place, very cliquey, with a sad quietness to it.  Granted, that means that I can spend my four hours-long work shift eating and reading Questionable Content comics, but I somewhat feel like I’ve landed in the valley of death.  Except this valley of death is significantly warmer than the outdoors, so I’m a little trapped.

I shouldn’t complain too much, though.  I made it through this week, Lord knows how.  I read 190 pages of psych, studied for two exams, and did decently well on both of them–all in less than two days.  It means I didn’t sleep or eat or leave my bed for a long time (seriously, my bed must be sick of me sitting on it or napping rather than just getting a full night of sleep).  I really summed up the situation in my latest Potters video.  The amount of insanity and sleepiness in my life is never the greatest of combinations.

Unless it causes these conversations to occur:

(knock on the door, Missi falls out of bed to answer it)
Missi: H…hello?
Jenn: Missi, for a Christmas card, do you want a gingerbread man or a Christmas tree?
Missi: A… A what?  …Ginger…bread…tree?
Jenn: No.  Gingerbread man.  Or Tree.
Missi: Oh…  They both sound lovely.  …Tree?
Jenn: Okay.  Thanks!  Go back to bed!
Missi: (closes the door and still stands there)  Okay?

(while contemplating if I should actually get out of bed and go eat dinner)
Missi: I could go now.  But I could wait until 6.45 when I need to leave for USMED but just eat on top of time because on top of time I can go to 6.23 and eat until 6.45 so I’m ready at the same time that I’m sleeping.  But would that hurt physics?  Does physics have feelings?  Can I hurt physics’ feelings?!
(and then I fell back asleep)

When I have little sleep, it leads to moments that make it totally worth it, even if I wake up the next morning sounding like death and looking like I’ve lost ten pounds from underneath my eyes and arse only.  Seriously, my jeans fit awesomely today, but the rest of me looks like shit from not having taken care of myself over the past week.  Rest assured that I will be fixing this and don’t plan on being in the same situation for quite some time.

Oh, and for those of you wondering how my little project went last weekend, awesomely.  It looks so beautiful and like it should be in the door of a German pub.  When I get my camera from those OfficeMax punks, I’ll show you an awesome picture or two.

The snow is picking up, though, and it’s glittering from the street lamps outside the window.  As much as it will be freezing walking back to MO, I can’t help but feel that it will be enjoyable.  Maybe I’ll stop for some cappuccino along the way.  Snow viewing and hot drinks are never a bad combination.  In fact, on the list of great combinations, it comes in around the top five, placing significantly higher than the combination of Missi and no sleep.

“From the courtyard, I floated in and watched it go down,
heard the cup drop, thought,
‘Well, that’s why they keep them around.'”

–Have One on Me, Joanna Newsom

Update:  See, I could have gone the cheap route and have given you 20 Years of Snow by Regina Spektor or Snow by Emilíana Torrini or anything by Snow Patrol, but my musical gift for today just happened to be what came onto the shuffle.  Lucky you!

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Spoilers and Links!

And now I’m right back at school and with so many interesting, challenging, fun things to do before now and when I go back home in two and a half weeks.  Wow.  Such a short amount of time before I’m heading right back, yet everyone makes it out to be such a long time.  But really, that’s two weeks of classes (and, oh you know, five exams), six chapters of psych to read, one stats assignment, three art projects, and Mrs Dalloway to finish up.  And then four/five finals!  I can do it, I can do it!

This weekend, I’m taking two days out on Friday and Saturday in order to make a (spoilers) for my mum for her joint birthday and Christmas present.  I’ll tell you what it is after I give her the gift, and I’ll be sure to put up pictures (with my new Nikon Coolpix that needs to be removed from its box).  Rest assured that it is something both artsy and never previously done by me.  My art professor is giving a class to a few of us about how to make unsaid object, so it will be pretty exciting to learn a new skill (even if I will be probably horrible at it).  I’ll give you a hint if you promise not to tell my mum, though.

Anyway, Thanksgiving holidays went well, though I saw less of my friends than I had anticipated.  I had two delicious meals with my mum’s side of the family and also with my dad’s/sister’s, was able to visit my work and chat with the managers, went to a bonfire with friends, and I even went Black Friday shopping to get money off of some boots I had bought a few days before ($100 off of the original price is incentive enough for me to brave the hordes of shoppers).  Somehow, Noah and I found a spot at the very, very front of where we wanted to be at the mall.  And thank God, because otherwise, it meant parking at least a half mile away, which would require us to cross seven lanes of very busy traffic.

But I spent a lot of time reading comics (such as Questionable Content and xkcd) and watching old episodes of Cowboy Bebop, which sort of felt like me from eighth grade coming to punch me in the face.  After six years of travelling, it’s built up some momentum.  My brother also gave me all of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law before he set out to move in with my dad, which, yes, happened on Sunday.  Hopefully he will be getting along a lot better down in Florida than here in Missouri where it’s just constant bickering.

The rain is coming in now, though, with chilly winds and so little light that it should be criminal.  I’ll set off to listen to more Natacha Atlas songs on Youtube so that I can decide which of her albums to buy today since I have a coupon from Amazon.  Oh, decisions, decisions.  Halim or Gedida?  Both are awesome albums of Egyptian/Arabic/French songs blended with electronic, hip hop beats.  She’s like listening to a young generation from the Gaza Strip.  So I’ll leave you to go decide on an album, though there’s really no wrong choice; both that I’ve previewed are amazing.

PS: If there were any more links in this post, I’m pretty sure WordPress would explode.  I just thought it would be fun to give some examples and references to you folks for all of the crazy things I chat about.

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Again and Again and Again and Again

Well, it’s yet again August, which means I’m trucking back up to school for the next nine months in order to pack my sponge-like brain full of knowledge so that I can squeeze it all out during the winter and summer holidays.  No, that’s being mean to my intellect.  I remember what’s necessary and come back each year smarter than I was the year before.  But I fully accept that I will forget half of what I learn this upcoming semester.

My classes seem pretty basic; I’m still in that stage of school where I have to completely my liberal arts requirements before I can jump just into my major and minor.  So, Brit Lit, German, and statistics are mostly to round that out (aside from the fact that I need to take yet another stats and German class next semester that have this semester’s classes as prerequisites).  Otherwise, I’ve started my studio art minor by taking a drawing class (which I had this morning, and it went very well), and I’m continuing my psychology major with a social psychology course.  Which, let’s face it, I’m super excited for that class.  Yes.  It will be a lot of work–more work than any of my other psych classes because it’s lecture, reading, papers, and projects rather than just a combination of a few of those elements.  But we have show and tell in class tomorrow, so I’m pretty pumped.

Otherwise, move-in was fine, all aside from a hurt foot and constant indecision about where to put things.  Last year, the room was so small that there was really only one way to arrange things, so decisions were much simpler.  This year, my room is literally twice as large, so I had more options–leading to a full day of moving things back and forth and trying to figure out what I liked and didn’t like.  But after twelve hours of organising and decorating, things were finally looking pretty good.  Want a picture?  All right, here:

Apartment Therapy can eat it’s heart out; I think it looks pretty damn good.

But it feels odd, yet right, to be back.  Odd in the sense that I’m in a new room, starting all over, and I no longer recognise half of the people in the cafeteria.  Right in the sense that nearly everyone from last year is back.  We gathered for dinner last night and then in the lounge, and things fell right back into place–we played games, watched television, I was overly ridiculous and annoying, we all laughed.  Just as it was where we left off, just a few people gone who moved out or graduated and a few people new who have moved in or are freshmen.  I’m just waiting for everything to click and fell exactly the same as it did last year.  Give it another few days.  I’ll be there.

Nothing else is that big right now.  The cycle of water and tea starts again, music plays, and books get read.  That’s just about how it goes.

I’ll keep you updated.

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Harry Freaking Potter

If you have not yet seen A Very Potter Sequel (the sequel to last year’s A Very Potter Musical), I recommend getting onto your fat ass and watching it via Youtube.  Click here for the link.  I’ve been sitting around for the last few days, deciding why I’m strangely attracted to Lupin (aside from the very handsome Darren Criss).

Anyway, I’ve been musing around lately about how I’m going to be setting up my dorm this upcoming semester.  And when I say musing, I mean worrying and trying to figure things out.  The main point is that I need to find a place to fit my desk where it will get natural sunlight from the window but not disturb my room mate when I turn on the desk lamp early in the morning (because our sleeping schedules are quite a bit off sync).  I was worried that I’d also need to position my desk in an area so that the shelving on top of it could serve as a night stand to my lofted bed, but I’ll try to get a clamp on shelf for that.  It’s dumb that I’ve lost sleep over deciding where to place my desk, but welcome to my life of being an interior design nerd.  I sit around looking at house tours on Apartment Therapy while sipping down hot tea with Cat.  If you are interested in the neatest ever decor or vintage furniture or anything about making a house unique and interesting, check-ch-check-check check-ch-check it out.

I’ve been reorganising my room a lot lately.  Or perhaps it’s just cleaning.  A very deep cleaning that it has been neglecting for years.  The only other thing on my list to still clean out would be the top of my closet, which has not felt a human hand since sixth grade, when I dumped the entire contents of my floor onto the shelves in a matter of three minutes so that I could go over to a friend’s.  Ever since, it’s just sat there, and I’ve turned a blind eye.  But, since I’ve cleaned so much else over the past year, why the hell not tackle that one of these days?  The storage space is unbelievable, and I’m ashamed that I’ve been wasting it all of these years.

I’ve also been giving away a lot of things.  Hefty bag after hefty bag after hefty bag.  My mum always has been a pack rat, and she passed that onto me at an early age.  But, as I grow, I’m beginning to leave that–much to her chagrin.  She’s definitely not delighted when I give away all of my old stuffed animals or clothes from elementary school or old school supplies.  But I always tell her, ‘what am I to do with it?’  If it hasn’t been used in six years, that means that I never will use it later on.  If it’s a stuffed animal that has eight years of dust on it, do you really expect me to want to play with it five years down the road?  She has trouble understanding that I am an adult who has no need for all of the crap that I have managed to collect over the years.  After a while, you have to let a lot go because it’s flooding your life and slowly drowning you.

For me, the release is all I ask for.  Becoming emotionally attached to objects is a bad habit that I’m strangling out of me.  I don’t want to be dependent on things that I do not need or want or care for.  If they can be donated to someone who will actually use them, then everyone is better for it.

But that’s an example of only one of the many differences that my mum and I have.  There are many others, mostly in personality.  She is very high strung, irrational.  And I used to be that way completely, but I’ve also been growing away from it over the past few years as I figure out just who I am, and I’m not sure if she’s willing to accept that yet.  She may never be ready to accept that I am not the same person as her and a separate entity.  But I’m more than willing to break away.

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Animosity, Wow!

(Note: I originally tried to hide this from third parties, but because of the drama and hurt I caused with it, I’m putting it fully into the open.  I better ready myself for deleting the spam comments.  There will be a follow up blog or two to explain some actions.  But you won’t see the full repercussions.)

Woah.  Just woah.  Where the hell have I been?  Has it really been more than two weeks since I updated?  Have I really said ‘ef it’ to everything online?  Yeah, turns out.  Somehow, I’ve ended up with only two public posts so far in May, which is a major turn around from my average of twelve, post-non-depression.  Oh wait, I’m sorry, let me put that in layman terms: I posted a shit tonne when I was depressed and stressed with school.  Now, I just sit in my room and internet around, or I’m flitting off with friends, having adventures and catching shit on fire.

Should I say that?  Adventures and fire?  Will that go against me?  We’ll pretend it won’t.

All right, making a mad dash to fill in crap.  Feel privileged–I haven’t even been writing in my diary because I’ve either been doing too much or just haven’t cared.  I guess that’s what summer does to you.  So, where do I begin?  Well, I’m still unpacking (my room looks ganky as fack; I can’t wait for everything to be put in its rightful place), I’ve hung out with my friends literally every day for nearly two weeks, and I don’t have a job.

Let’s start with the friends department.  We’ve been hanging out, catching up, blah blah blah: enjoyable.  Some friends and I meandered to the Renaissance Faire today (kick ass, let me tell you), have made far too many trips to Main Street, and have had a few get togethers that have all either ended in a bonfire or watching a movie or both.  Somehow, we end up adding gossiping like bitches and throwing dance parties into that mix, which then leads to trips to Steak and Shake in the dead of night.  I don’t know how this happens.

Something I do know that happens, and will most likely happen until the end of time, is that our friends will find gossip and drama to parade around.  Whether it be talking too much about the girls who are preggers or getting pissed off about not being invited to watch a television show that you don’t even like watching, we manage to claw at each other when backs are turned.

Now, I realise that this is just girl life (though how that ever became a standard, I’m unsure of), but damn it!  Can’t some people just hide their bitch-card once in a while?  For heaven’s sakes; I have a friend mad about not being invited to a small get together and another mad at me for eating a slice of pizza that I paid for.  And then the smart Facebook statuses full of complaints about it?  Really girls: get over it.  We’re all bitches to each other, so don’t feel so hurt.

I sound really negative, maybe on the edge of upset, but I’m not.  My mum even commented that I take social drama more maturely than anyone she’s ever met.  I don’t let my emotions get involved, and it’s why I am rarely disappointed or upset or angered over things that happen.  Not to mention that I accept the fact that I’m not everyone’s best friend and thus will not be invited to every little get-together.  I accept that I make other people uncomfortable at dance parties and that you’re afraid to touch me (unless you’re Alex, who decided to-hell-with-it and gave me a four second-long lap dance at a party because everyone else was too intimidated by me.  You win, Alex!).  I’m fully aware that people say mean things behind others’ backs then smile at them ten minutes later.  It’s kind of life, so I don’t get upset by this petty drama or how people treat me.  Getting bothered seems like a waste of time.

I guess I’m just trying to say that I wish others didn’t feel the need to be so upset by such small things.  No wonder heart-failure is so prevalent in this country: everyone is constantly moving fast and getting angry.  We all need to chill; have a Meditation With Missi day.  It will be glorious.  I promise.

Meanwhile, no job.  Not surprising, actually.  With this economy, even my friend who has applied for seventeen jobs can’t manage to grab one (and she’s one of the workers people should fight over).  You could say that I’ve given up without trying all that much.  After all, the Historical Society must need me in order to bring me in, and without the need, you might as well sit back and think of other things.  That ‘other thing’  for me has been painting.  I recently decided to start a miniature painting business (as in, I paint you a crappy picture for twenty bucks that you’ll probably hang in your dorm room).  It’s part hobby, part that I need the practise, and part summer job.  Maybe I can paint enough to have a little spending money for the summer (like, an extra fifty dollars, yo).  Nothing high-roller; I think of it more as bartering anyway.  You get a painting, I get a full tank of gas.  That sort of thing.

If you’re interested in purchasing a painting, let me know.  I’m best at abstracts and landscapes.  Give me the information, I’ll tell you size possibilities and prices.  We’ll work this old school.

Anyway, I can’t find much else to say.  This was more of a ‘let me fill you in and be a bitch along the way’ kind of blog.  And to anyone who would be upset by anything said: please take some time to chill and not let little things ruin your life.  You owe it to yourself.

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It’s April…

…Midway through April, actually, and yet I have not posted more than, what, one thing?  Ridiculous.  Yeah, yeah.  Ridiculous; I’ll fill you in.

Humans v Zombies continued on last week, and I spent an afternoon reading in the quad, watching a mission take place.  A gaggle of humans stalked by and then a horde of zombies, with me on a blanket sitting in between.  For more than an hour, I watched the ensuing battle, which was highly entertaining.  I’d show you the photos that I took, but my internet access at university is so poor that it will have to wait until I am back at home in three weeks.

(Note, I ended up getting a different picture to work:)

I’ve been spending the past weeks more and more outdoors reading or spending time with friends.  We’ve gone out on blankets to hang out, do homework, and even have a picnic.  It’s wonderful to not have to wear a coat and even better to wear only a t-shirt, which the weather has permitted over the past two weeks.  I’ve been able to be more active with this weather, too, which is nice since I now have a new goal for getting in shape.  I’m usually all about health and just making sure that my body is healthy, but now I want to shape it up so that I can join belly dancing next semester.  Granted, I could join as I am now, but I think I’d be more comfortable and have an easier time if I worked on getting a trimmer middle over the summer.  So I’m going to try swimming every morning, get back into running a few miles each day, and I’ll now try some preliminary dancing to tone up.  Belly dancing, here I come!

It seems funny to me that these pictures were only taken around a week ago, yet the entire campus has blossomed since then.  It’s absolutely gorgeous.

Three weeks until summer, though…  What an odd realisation.  Over my extended break, I plan to go to Florida to visit my dad, maybe get a volunteer job on Main Street (if they should ever need the extra help; they can call me at a moment’s notice, I think), sew at least two dresses and a skirt, and paint at least four paintings.  I promised my friend Heather that I would enter a painting into the Missouri Hall Art Gallery next year, so if I make that over the summer, it will free my time up over the semester to work on it.  I’m thinking of painting a scene from the quad or somewhere on Truman’s campus, and it will be big.  Bigger than any other painting that I’ve yet done (I’m thinking one of those canvases that’s nearly three feet tall).  I’m also painting pictures for both my current room mate Jess for her room next year and my friend Abby for her room next year.  It shouldn’t be so odd that I’m looking forward to making these paintings so much, but I am.  That’s why I became an art minor, I guess.

Speaking of art, I finalised my schedule for next semester, and it’s a beast.  I have statistics, intermediate German, British literature from Romantic to Modern, a six hour long drawing 1 course, and a 400-level Intro to Clinical Psychology class.  The last one is rather intimidating.  It isn’t just a difficult class but a class meant for older psych majors, so I may be kicking myself next semester.  But, maybe it will teach me good work ethic, and it will put me ahead.  I just wish that I could have gotten into social psychology like I had originally planned for, but upon entering in the code during registration, I accidentally put in the code for psychopharmacology, which in no way interests me or goes toward what I will be doing with a psychology degree.  By the time I could try and fix my mistake, it was too late–the class was full.  So, I ended up finding this 400-level gem that fit into my schedule.  We’ll see how it turns out.

Meanwhile, what an awesome group of friends I have: they helped me create a Quidditch team for my university’s Quidditch match last week.  It was a great time with six teams vying for the top spot.  Now, we aren’t the sportiest bunch, so we definitely had more losses than wins, but it was incredibly fun.  The hosts of the events even gave out legit Harry Potter snacks (fudge flies, chocolate frogs, Berty Bots beans, pumpkin juice, butter beer, et cetera).  What an awesome time.  Here are some pictures that my internet finally allowed me to upload:

Our team name was Albus and the Dumbledores, and we even made legit tie-dye shirts for the event.

We played with beach balls, a volley ball, and these tall hoops.  It was actually quite challenging.  The snitch ended up being a track runner with a sock hanging out of his shorts that you had to pull out.  I was seeker, and it was definitely hard work; I was feeling muscles the next day that I didn’t even know I had.  Ouch!

And, of course, we ran with brooms in between our legs, which was more fun than challenging.  Awkwardness, after all, can be one of the best things ever to laugh at.

That’s about it for now.  Hopefully this filled you in a little about what has been going on in my life.  Thank God for spring and summer holidays!  Hope you’re all doing well.

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Memorisation Does Not Equal Learning

I feel pretty ahead today, even though it’s clear that I am not.  It’s probably more that I’m not rushing to get reading done before classes.  Another fifteen minutes of reading and taking notes from my speech book, and I’m relatively finished with everything that must be read for a class today.  But, tonight I’ll scramble to get my psych reading done before tomorrow morning, and I’ll inevitably accept that I won’t have it finished until Wednesday night.  So, there you go.

I have an art group that I have to go to in about forty minutes that I’m not looking forward to.  Our art teacher is pretty much insane, and we see no point in the project that we’ve been assigned.  It’s not like we’re learning anything from it.  In fact, we haven’t learned anything from the class in general.  Our last test literally concerned learning ten artists, memorising the years they were alive, their style, and their nationality.  Sure, now I know that Albrecht Dürer lived in Germany during the fifteenth century (or something like that), but how does that help me with art?  How about we study his paintings and sketches, learn what makes them unique and a tribute to art.  Let’s not just memorise facts for a couple days so that we can release them from our sponge-like brains later on.  Who ever thought that this style of learning was effective should be shot, or at least made to take a semester of their own class.

I don’t know how this just turned into a rant, especially since my original plan was to talk about how it rained today and that made me happy.  I like rain; it’s refreshing to the soul and mind and body.  It keeps the river of life moving.  Not to mention that it’s been far too long since Kirksville last saw any precipitation that was not just fog lingering over the campus.

So, today’s going to be all right.  And if it isn’t, stuff it.  I’ll make it all right.

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