On the other hand...

A dose of perspective is always good for me. I just wish that perspective wasn't usually at the expense of someone else.


PS: I want to take a CNA class this summer.

To do something

I seem to know quite a few people at the moment who are doing big things.


Studying abroad. Planning weddings. Making films. Landing internships. Making speeches.


I wish I were one of them.


I did something over interterm. In three weeks, I, along with three other girls, researched, conducted interviews, and wrote an entire book on Skid Row in Los Angeles. A book that's actually going to be published. It was amazing. It was intense, challenging, and exhausting, but amazing. And I miss it. I wish all my semesters could be like that.


I love Torrey and it has definitely been an incredible growing experience, but at the moment, standing at the edge of another semester crammed with hundreds of pages of reading, hours upon hours of discussion and lectures, and endless notes and essays, I'm honestly finding myself wishing for something else. As much as being in Torrey has been amazing, I don't really want to go through this one more semester of that all-consuming, all-demanding 12 units that leave little time for my 6 units worth of journalism classes. I've actually preferred that the last three semesters. But now that I've had a taste of what it's like to be a journalist, and not a Torrey student, I don't feel ready to switch back.


It's only one more semester of this.


But that's saying a lot. There is no "only" with Torrey. I'm burned out.


I don't want to spend the whole semester isolated in my room poring over books that are three inches thick into the wee hours of the night. I don't want to go through a highlighter a week and use up two ink cartridges printing out all my painstaking notes. I don't want my life for the next four months to consist primarily of reading and discussion and notes, and only secondarily (and that's distantly) of journalism and my three jobs, with only visits to Facebook to really give me some semblance of contact with the outside world. 


Part of me aspires to be an academic, the kind of person who can churn out profound thoughts and lengthy papers at whim.


Part of me is so tired of trying to be that. 


I ask good questions. I write well. And I've discovered I prefer using those things for journalism rather than for hundreds-years-old books. 


I want to DO something.


Patience.


I need to learn it...

Broken glass

Discovered and edited. I like the results.


The original:

With edits:

Prayer wall

It'll grow...

Lauren Chumbley, Hannah St. Louis, Riley Robertson, McCrae family, Sean Borah, Sarah Goddard, Jaskilka family, Chris Vogt, Anderson family, Vogt family, Ford family, Robynne Peterson, Anna Muegge, Kelly Fischer, Buck family

Drip drop

Because it was windy, I couldn't use my umbrella.


Because I couldn't use my umbrella, my only warm coat and boots are completely drenched.


As is the rest of me.


DRENCHED.


I adore the rain, but I hope it takes the day off tomorrow so I have time to dry out!

He makes me laugh

AIM, 5:20pm.


Me:    whatcha up to?
Chris: life
            love
            and other mysteries

Monday midnight thoughts

I adore walking in the rain, especially at night, but I wish it was possible to do so while still being able to see the lake-sized puddles in my path. Or that I had rain boots.


I did a lot of writing tonight. A LOT. And I'm enjoying it. But I still have so much left to write. And rewrite. And I really hope I'll be able to finish my interviews tomorrow despite the fact that it's MLK day. Because, quite honestly, I'm a little bit screwed if I don't, if you'll pardon my French. It's hard to believe that come Friday at 9:45pm, a whole book will be completed about which the four of us in the class knew nothing only 19 days prior. 


Yes, it will be completed. And Lord-willing, it will be good.


Chris makes me very happy. And I'm even happier that I'm able to do the same for him. And that boy never ceases to amaze me. And I like that we're going through the whole Bible together.


Speaking of which... I keep meaning to start off the day reading a Psalm. Maybe I'll actually remember that tomorrow. (Tomorrow meaning later today.)


Maybe I'll actually wake up at the right time tomorrow, too.


I'm torn, per usual, as to whether I should go to sleep now, or get some more work done first. I'll probably opt for the latter, since I'm in a writing mood now and I don't experience that as often as I'd like nowadays.


My verse for the week is Psalm 54:4. "Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me." I need that on every level.

Today in the lobby

I saw something I can't say I've ever seen before.


I went up to make soup, and on the sofas were a pair of rather overweight guys engrossed in an infomercial for some new fitness system.


While they watched, they were making fun of how ugly they thought the people were who were giving success story testimonials.


Interesting.

Surrendering

My dreams
(My fears)
Here on this paper
Torn
Into scraps
In fragments
(Not fragmented
Not broken
Not wrong
But not mine
To cling to
They never were)
Just words
Ideas
On paper
They might have faded
But I tore them
Into pieces
(Not crumpled)
The paper
Still white
I hold the fragments
In my hands
Not to be
Buried
No
My dreams
(My fears)
They are
Not
Dead
They might have been
If I held them
Too long
But now
(Not buried)
I open my hands
My scraps of paper
Borne on the breeze
I let them go
They are
Not 
Mine
They are
Free


They


Are

It is a good day

I was already feeling good about the day because I woke up to Chris calling me, and then because it's a gorgeous day outside, I'm wearing a new dress I got on sale at home.


I finished my chapel makeups -- all 14 of them, which made me feel wonderfully free.


And then... I got an email notifying me that I won a $100 sweepstakes from Brickfish! That kind of thing NEVER happens to me!


*smile*