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.

Read Full Post »

I think I’m going back.

Somewhere in my closet, there’s a Zack Weber t-shirt beside a jacket made out of a blanket and a stack of painting clothes, still covered in silver spray paint from those Stuco lock ins.  And in front of that, there are sliding mirrors.  And then there’s the reflection of a bed room and an open window showing this big world…

I go back home on Friday, which I’m excited for.  Part of me just wants to go pick up my cat and snuggle.  Another wants to go take a walk down by the river and visit my work to talk about scheduling some time over winter holidays.  And another wants to cook a meal, start a fire, and turn on football in the living room.  But, even more than those, there’s something I’m really, really, really ready for:

Harry-freaking-Potter.

AHHHH!  It’s so close and yet so far away!  The new Harry Potter film comes out this Friday, but I’m waiting until Monday to see it with some friends since it got sold out here in Kirksville.  Never has a movie seemed so far away when it is really less than a week away.  So if I just don’t exist online from Friday until Monday, it’s because I’m trying to avoid what people are saying about Harry Potter.

Yes, I’m a six year old, plugging her ears.

But it could be worse; I could be a six year old with massive amounts of homework and reading, but that was more the past two weeks.  For this week, I only have to read a psychological text and write a ten page paper.  And while this may sound terrifying to some people, the task itself is very easy.  Now, I just have to make myself sit still for long enough to read the book and take notes.  And from there?  It’s easy.

There really haven’t been that many developments in my life this month.  It’s been time with friends and ink wash paintings and watching more and more brown leaves gather together outside of my windows.  If I had a camera, I’d show you pictures, but as it stands, I’m not getting a new camera until this holiday (a Nikon CoolPix, probably).  If you have any camera recommendations, feel free to leave me a comment.  Until next time, see you!

“Wouldn’t it be okay
if we took a little drink and we start to fly away?
All I really want is you and me here,
you and I.”

–Playground Rocks, Zack Weber

Read Full Post »

Grown Women (and their children)

As I talked about in my last post, parties with my extended family usually don’t go well.  They either end with me being made fun of, me being ganged up on and then made fun of, or me falling in the mud.  Yesterday, all three occurred.

There wasn’t any making fun of my nerdiness, oh no.  They had something far more fun to tease at–my being a vegetarian.  When my aunt, who’s in the medical field, mind you, heard about me becoming a vegetarian for the health benefits, her only response was, “But, like, eating that healthy food all the time just isn’t good for you!”

She was being completely serious.  Later, she harassed me about my tofurkey, being a hippy for animals, and other related topics dealing with being a vegetarian.  This, of course, lead to her three children to also harass me.  And, you see, I can deal with her.  She’s just a 47 year-old with low self-esteem.  What I cannot deal with are her children making the same claims toward me.  My cousin, who is ten, has it in her mind that I’m the most boring, loser person in the world.

For instance, I sat in an arm chair and read some pages for my  psychology class.  We ended up having a conversation while I was reading, and I mentioned somewhere along the way that reading was fun when you had a good book.  This was immediately labelled as boring and loser-ish activity.  Later, when she said that she wanted to watch Twilight, and I told her to read the book before she see a movie based on the book, I was met with a scoff and a reply that I was a loser.

Hey now, I wasn’t the one who said that I wanted to see the new Twilight movie, ma’am.

And my tofurkey and eating the healthier menu options?  Of course, an echo of her mother’s statements.  Later, when I asked her what her dream job was, and she mirrored the question to me, I told her straight up: I’m working to be a psychologist and do counselling, but I would love to have a Travel Channel show where I go around the world and eat new foods and see cool cultures.  She said that was “stupid”.  I told her three good reasons why it was not: 1) You get to see the world for free; 2) You get neat new dishes for free; 3) You get to be on television.  She tried to challenge my statement: 1) Why would you want to leave America? 2) That food is gross; 3) They probably won’t like you.

Hmm.  Why would I want to leave American?  Because I want to experience the rest of the world, see what it has to offer, see different ways of life.  I want to get out of the suburbs, walk around 400 year-old streets, and meet people with completely different world views so that I can not only better myself culturally, but also understand the world around me.  Yes, not all food tastes good, but I tend to think that most of it does.  I’m not a picky eater like her (unless you count the whole meat aspect, now).  And, the last one was her failed attempt to get three.  People won’t like you.  Well, for starters, not everyone likes me.  I fully acknowledge that, and it does not bother me (it bothers her).  But, because I am an open minded person and because I make a solid attempt to understand other cultures, I’m pretty sure that most people would like me.  Besides, I’d even use the language when shopping or ordering food.  And, let me tell you, that made my trip to Germany so much easier.

I won the conversation, but she didn’t know it.  Nobody around did.  to them, their still closed mind means that they won.  To me, remaining open minded meant that I won.  Everything is a matter of perspective, I know.  It’s just that I’m thinking mine is right for the time being.

It simply infuriates me, though, that there are people like them who, if you don’t fit into their perfect, suburban, television drained world, then you are a loser.  It’s even more infuriating when the girl who calls you a loser, is actually the loser.  She hasn’t any friends.  She hasn’t any other hobbies than sitting in front of a television.  She just shoves her void of self onto other people, too, claiming that they are incorrect.  Don’t push your lack of self-esteem on me; it won’t work.  I’m smarter than that.  I’m more successful than that.

And, of course, the day ended with slipping in the mud and practically destroying ever piece of clothing that I was wearing.  I borrowed some of my grandmother’s clothes (whaddup Missi in thirty years?) and immediately drove home to wash the cakes of mud off both my clothes and myself.

But, I know that I shouldn’t complain about Thanksgiving, that was just a well needed rant.  Otherwise, things went well.  I got to see some family that I hadn’t seen in a while, was able to talk with my grandparents, and I was even able to read a few pages of psychology (though I’m still terribly behind).  That’s how it went, though.  I’ll tell you if anything changes for Christmas.

Read Full Post »

Blogging, Qat, and Grown Women

Blogging seems to be contagious, as some of my best-friends have recently started their own blogs after my mentioning that I had one.  Granted, half of them were writing before on Facebook or the like, but I still feel slightly accomplished.

Okay, now I just feel self-centred.  Let me reiterate: I feel pretty happy that my friends are now blogging, too.  It gives me yet another source for easy stalking–you know, should Facebook’s stalker-feed ever lose its shine.

Thanksgiving break has been going… okay.  I am by no means getting along with my mum, but that’s to be expected.  Instead, I’ve been running errands with my step-dad and have been shutting myself in my bedroom with Cat.  Cat is my cat.  My mum calls her Sweetie, but I thought that was terribly unoriginal, so I call her Cat.  Yes, I was even less imaginative with naming her, but maybe I’ll spell it as Qat.  Ultimate win.

Right now, there’s homework that I should be doing, though.  Instead, I’m reading the same old Lord of the Rings things, listening to Foo Fighters, and staring out of my open window.  None of which are bad things, it’s just that I have over 100 pages to read for psychology and about an equal length for history.  Somehow, I doubt that I will be able to get everything done that I wanted to over break.  Guess I’ll be working hard when I get back, even though I wanted to be able to read everything now so that I only had to study come December.  Finals will not be fun, and I am most certainly not looking forward to them.  Hell week is not welcome.

At least I’ll be too busy cooking tomorrow to really be able to think about homework.  My tofurkey needs to cook along with my family’s normal turkey, and I’ll also be helping out my grandmother since she is hosting the Thanksgiving party for my extended family.  That will be fun (sarcasm).  Not the helping–I’m looking forward to that.  It’s the extended family.  To say the least, we’ve never really gotten along.  They’ve used me as their punching bag for far too long, and not even in the ways that I can joke off.  I make half of the cousins look like dumb asses, so the parents make themselves feel better about their children by pointing out all of my oddities.

“She sings in choir and plays piano?  How stupid.  Why doesn’t she like video games?”

“Missi’s going to Truman; guess she has no fun.”

“Oh look, I can sing just like Missi.” (Insert off pitch squealing here.)

“You actually get all A’s?  You must be a loser.”

“Lin, your daughter doesn’t drink?  What the hell does she do for fun?”

“Oh, well, J-‘s had a girl-friend for two years now, why isn’t Missi dating anyone?”

Etc.

It’s the type of immature stuff that middle schoolers like to say, except that these are fully grown adults who have nothing better to do than pick on a teenager.  I don’t know about you, but I find it pretty sick when an adult needs to make fun of a kid in order to make themselves feel better.  And as much as I scoff at this immature nagging, it really does bother me.  They’ve made it up in their mind so much that I’m nerdy and not really all that good but all talk that they won’t bother to see what I can do sometimes.  They won’t bother to see my on stage, and they later gossip with each other about how I’m not really that good, but that my mum must just be boosting her own confidence by speaking so highly of me.

Bull shit.

Grown Women, if you can’t find anything better to do with your time than harass a teenager, then you might as well off yourself now.  Because, you may think that it doesn’t matter, but it does when your children learn to do this same thing as you.  And I’d feel pretty bad if my child grew up to be arse to others.  But maybe that’s just me.

Sorry, though.  What a rant.  It’s just something that has been bothering me for, well, years.  Immaturity bothers me.  Remaining ignorant/uneducated purposely bothers me.  Uneducated sounding accents bother me.  Hopefully you can see what I’m getting at here: If you don’t try, I don’t try.  And that’s how it will go.

Hopefully they won’t harass me during Thanksgiving, though.  My success so far will make it difficult for them to resist, but maybe they will have become more mature lately.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Read Full Post »

Thanksgiving Break

It’s Tuesday, and I’m missing Kirksville.  My mum stresses me beyond all reason, and my waterbed is no longer as comfortable as it used to be.  My dorm bed has spoiled me, which is an odd statement to make.  Usually, people complain about those things…

Meanwhile, I finally got a car–my step-dad’s old Explorer.  It’s not much, but it will get me from point A to B, it has working heating, and the CD player is… well, there.  It’s not the best, trust me, but I’m still pretty happy with it.  The only downside was that it took a little time at the Licensing bureau to get all of the paper work ready.  And after that, I just renewed my license.  Ha Cha Cha–and it was a much better picture than last time.

Aside from my daily drivels, I’ve been cutting more and more meat out of my diet lately, and now I’m down to about one serving of meat per week.  It’s much healthier for you to cut down on meat, which is why I’m doing it (none of that obsessive PETA crap).  I’ll most likely be a vegetarian at the start of the new year.  That will give me a lovely goal for 2010.  I’m sure I’ll do fine keeping it up, especially with Aaron encouraging me; he’s already a vegetarian and often informs me that I might as well become one.

The cool thing with cutting down on meat, though, is that I’ve actually lost weight.  I lost six pounds (which really isn’t all that much), but I did lose two inches around my waist and went down a full dress size.  So, after getting home, I had to stop by the mall to get new jeans.  Size eleven definitely feels nice.  Plus, I actually treated myself to some Levi’s skinny jeans instead of Walmart’s sorry excuse for trousers.  So, much to Rebecca’s liking, I now have fitting jeans.

And pause.

Why would Rebecca care if I bought new jeans?  Well, it wasn’t the new jeans part, but she’s been trying to get me to buy Levi’s for the past three months now.  They’re good quality; I won’t deny that.  It’s just that, when I had looked at the Levi’s store a year ago, they didn’t have any skinny jeans above a size nine, and nothing in talls.  Being the five foot nine giant that I am, I was in serious need of thirteen talls.  But, now, not only do they have all sizes in skinny jeans and in talls, but I could buy the elevens.  Awesome time, seriously.

Anyway, time for dinner, even though it seems to early at 17.17; I like that time.  My mum made spinach lasagne for me, which is nice.  I’m honestly surprised that she has become receptive of my attempts at limiting meat.  That, or she just feels bad that I had to eat a chicken sandwich yesterday and it upset my stomach since it was too much meat.

Either way, I’m happy.  Let’s just wait and see how Thanksgiving goes, though.  After all–it is the holiday that’s celebrated with turkey…

Read Full Post »

Anticipation

Thanksgiving is one week more, but that doesn’t keep me from flitting about in joy and anticipation.  My house is restless with break starting tomorrow evening, and there has been an increase in students either not giving a shit about homework and reading or simply not giving a shit about even turning up for class.  My psychology class this morning was missing a full third of its population–something rare with my strict teacher.

So, for the moment, I’m sitting in my room, checking Facebook, fiddling with the heater, and listening to a Pandora.com channel modelled after Lord of the Rings and Adiemus.  As my legs jitter below my desk, my eyes keep being pulled to the window.  Interesting people.  Many interesting people.  Men in tight, wool coats riding bicycles to class.  Someone smoking.  Another walking in his hooded sweatshirt.  I enjoy people watching, and it’s even more enjoyable during these moments of anticipation.

Tomorrow I will leave.  Leave.

To be honest, I’m unsure about that.  It will be nice to see my family, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle nine days with them; hell, I was suffering after two days earlier in the semester.  I fit at Truman.  Not Kirksville; the town is too tiny and uncultured.  But I certainly fit on campus.  I love my house, our discussions, movie nights, trips to Train Bridge.  I think what gets me so much is that we act like a family rather than just some kids forced to live together.  We’re always together, helping each other out, recommending new music and films, allowing each other to de-stress.  We act differently from other houses on campus, and we’re closer.

I’ll miss them over the break, and we’ll miss each other.  We may actually visit each other over break, too.  My friend Aaron lives in St. Louis, and we may meet up at some point.  Speaking of which, he recently did some modelling work for Mother Models.  I’ll copy in the link to his photos with Valeska.  Take a peek.

http://www.corridor40.com/2009/11/editorials/days-of-future-passed

That’s about it, though.  I’ll be going back to my jittering now.

Read Full Post »