:)

There's nothing like an ego boost. A writer likes nothing more than validation from others....and I got a healthy dose of it today. I find I rather enjoy it. :)

For tonight, I am content.

I have Brock's birthday present completely figured out, and I'm really hoping he'll like it.

I have my driving test tomorrow morning - a retake (because apparently I didn't stop long enough at the stop signs last times, or take into account "pedestrians" on the sidewalks) - and I'm really really really hoping that I do well enough to pass it.

And for tonight, I'm hoping I don't get more sick than I've been getting.

I almost did the splits today in dance class, got a round of applause from the rest of the class lol and it was indeed a bit exhilarating....another couple classes and I'll be doing the splits completely. It's kind of weird to think about lol. I've never been able to do them before.

Anyway. For today, though I woke up at 430 and started off rather unenthusiastically, it hasn't ended too badly.

Wish me luck for tomorrow and the weeks to come! :)

Ut re mi fa sol la.....and no, I didn't get this wrong. It's original. ;)

So, it's been a while since I've written a post, and I'm not exactly sure how to go about it anymore.

A few times in the past few weeks I've thought out a post in my head, but I never took the time to write it out or post it. Other things just seem more important.

Now that school is up and going along, I suppose things have mellowed out in their way. I've been able to keep up with my work, most of it has been reading so far, with very few assignments interspersed, but it seems to work out okay. I'm supposed to be getting my first paper assigned on Monday, and I'm a little nervous, because that's a place I had trouble with last year. But, I suppose we'll see. As long as I keep on top of my work, and don't get too frazzled over it, I should be fine. Or so I like to tell myself. Must stay positive.

I'm liking all of my classes...or at least, I was. Lately, they've all been centering around the same thing: religion. It's hard to see how two literature classes and a music history class can be talking about relatively the same thing as my biblical literature class. Almost irritating. I'm hoping, as the semester progresses, there'll be less religion mixed in with the general lessons. I know that my classes have all lost their initial appeal, and become a little boring. I've already started finding myself in that mood that says "i don't want to go, i don't have to go." Thankfully, I haven't skipped yet. But I've become extremely tempted to already. My creative writing class, at the very beginning, was living up to its promise. I was extremely satisfied with it. Now, however, its starting to get off track. Everyone is becoming more comfortable with each other, and the entire class goes on huge tangents and nothing gets read and it's absolutely ridiculous and frustrating.

I've started writing poems again, though, and that makes me happy. My writing class has at least ensured that I write something at least semi-regularly. I'm still working on figuring out how to get back to writing on my book like I was this summer, I haven't been able to keep myself looking at it now that my attention is dragged away to other things. My only problem with the class is that the teacher keeps giving me my poems back and saying "this is very good, but I want you to get past your comfort zone of craft (ie. my rhyming) and write something closer to the truth." Irritating. He wants me to write free verse and sparse of word and be absolutely literal in what I say. In other words, he wants me to write like the poets he likes to read. It's fucking bullshit. I write the way I write, don't push me in another direction. If I don't want to tell the world exactly what the fuck I'm feeling, I have that right.

Anyway. I've been sick for the last week, though I think it's allergies. But, allergies or not, it's still annoying and still won't go away, and it only reminds me of last year where it felt like I was sick almost constantly.

The oddball class that I have is a dance class. Movement for Theater, to be precise. It's actually usually pretty fun. The last couple of classes we've been learning how to do swing dancing. Let me tell you, it's quite a workout. I even got a blister on the underside of my big toe, in the oddest place ever. The teacher has also been teaching us all kinds of "fundamentals" with ballet movement, things like turning, pirouettes, spotting, kicking, and many other things with fancy names that I can't remember lol. She said her main goal for the end of the semester is to have us all able to do the splits. Yikes. But I'm getting pretty close, I think lol. More than I used to be able to do anyway.

So that, at least, is my update. Brock and I are doing good, we're coming up on 9 months together, it almost seems unbelievable to me. I can't tell if it's because it feels like we've been together longer or shorter than that.  But a sobering thought came to my mind, this morning. I was thinking through all the visits he'd possibly have in this next year, and pretty soon I came to May and stopped....that's when he'll be going overseas. And I couldn't believe that that's how little I'd see him until he would leave for a year or more. Four days in October, some in November, a couple weeks in December/January, possibly something in March, maybe a visit in April, and then....nothing. And then I think of all the friends I have who are getting engaged and getting married, and we'll still be waiting. Only 34 months until we'll be getting married. Two years, ten months to go. I just hate that we have so many logical reasons to wait. It kills me. I don't want to wait, I never did from the start. But we have to. He doesn't want to be married in separate states, and all of my financial aid is tied up in Rocky. Not to mention the fact that he'll be deploying in about eight months anyway.

All I have to say is, if the world ends in 2012, I will be kicking some serious ass.

Feeling like...

I'm on the outside yet again.

Is it me? Or is it them?

I don't know, and I can't let it get to me.

I must just focus on other things, more important.

Getting things done - books, writing, eating, sleeping, working.

But I confess, that at the moment, all I want to do is nothing at all.

So how can I possibly be hurt by the things that others do, when I do it too.

This is something which I must remember, something which I must learn and move on from.

Until next time. School starts on Monday, things are theoretically going smoothly and well, though they aren't.

Ta for now.

The Last Letter

When reflecting on this past day, I am reminded of a story I wrote once. It was called The Last Letter.

More than the story itself, what I had wanted to convey when I wrote it was my own physical ailments that I was experiencing at the time. I attributed it to my backpack straps pinching nerves in my shoulders. I would get random spasms of pain from my nerves, in my neck, shoulder, head. Anywhere it could hit, it did. It was like something was stabbing my temple, and I usually ducked my head to try to get away from it. Often, it made me flinch when I had such a spasm. In my story, these happened to my character, and she was dying. This last week, I have had the same such nerve chaos that I was experiencing nearly two years ago. 

It is painful, to say the least. Horrible headaches - like sharp jabs at my temples, base of my head, neck, shoulders, and lately - lower abdomen. 

Now that I look at it, I believe the origin to be more caused by stress and lack of sleep than backpack straps. Not a fun picture to assess. Maybe my body reacts badly to such things anymore. It had too rough a time in high school - perhaps I should have treated it better. My wrist was throbbing all day today, and again, I believe it is how I have treated it in the past. My past will forever haunt me, it seems.

Bruises come, and fade, but do not completely go. They still hurt, and you can still see their imprints on my legs. Except for the recent burn on my wrist, I seem to scar more than I ever properly heal. Perhaps this is a statement on my life.

I don't mean to complain my way through this blog. It seems that's all I have done the past few posts. I apologize. Life isn't all horrible. I simply like to dwell on my disappointments sometimes. And when I do so, it helps me to think, and analyze myself more than I would if all I spoke of were good things.

I am getting along with my grandparents far better than I ever have before - and that is a fact I am quite happy to acknowledge. I have written at least 12 or 13 pages on my book in the past month, and that is more than I can say for the past year. That too makes me happy. I survived one year of college - and that amazes me. I still have friends to talk to (though I often feel alone more than anything else) and that is a comforting thought, when I can remember it. I have those who love me, and would help me if I need it, and that is something one should never forget.

But so often I get mired down in the icky details of life, the sludge that makes a murky haven in my words and thoughts.

I am at least moderately healthy. And except for the few bumps I have hit along the road in the past couple weeks, I am in a good place with those in my life. Some things can never be fixed, and other things must be accepted or be allowed to ruin you. 

Perhaps, with the events of this summer, I will learn better. Hindsight makes sages of us all. But if only the lessons are absorbed, perhaps they might help me along this road, and around the potholes and puddles.

Philosophical I wax tonight, it would seem. Perhaps in my dreams the words I have written will penetrate deep enough to be understood and absorbed and wielded with the purpose they were intended for.

Until then, and for now. Good night.

Door Mat. Walk all over me, please.

I feel like I'm living in the same house as my brother - the paranoia about my own things, and about leaving the house and putting my things in a more vulnerable position.

Not only that, through the words of a future in-law, I now feel supremely unwelcome.

The charity case. Who doesn't deserve shit because she doesn't do shit. Especially because I'm not family.

I cannot wait for the next week to pass. I want to leave. I wish I could. The sooner the better.

I'll have to find a different place for next Christmas break and summer. Make some extra money so I can afford the dorms over the holidays, or something. I'll sleep on the floor of my grandmother's basement if I can find no other option. But this - this won't be repeated.

I can't stand this, my limit has been broken. I feel like I have been both reverted back to my childhood self-and belittled in the most supreme way. There is no self worth here anymore.

I must become independent this year, as best I can, so I won't have to endure this kind of humiliation again.

Oh the Irony.

This Aching Empty
I do not mind the waiting
The silence, or the lonely
The thing I mind, as you will find
Is living without you.

My thoughts are mine alone, you see
My time - free to command.
But emptiness is hard to breathe -
This living without you.

The bed is not the problem
I sprawl, I twist, I turn alone
But when the sleep eludes me, love
I find this just won't do.
___

You can't imagine how unbearable it is to be so far apart. I never imagined it would be like this. Sigh.

Scholarships....or lack thereof.

Ugh.

It's a quarter past midnight, and boy am I exhausted. I attempted to fall asleep around ten, but after an hour of not falling asleep, I decided to get onto my computer and search, search, search, agonizingly search for writing scholarships.

One hour later. And guess what?

Still found nothing.

What was it my step-dad said to me? "You just type it into google and you'll find hundreds of them, all you have to do is look. It's not that difficult." Why doesn't he just try it?

Sigh.

I'm tired. I'm annoyed. I'm empty handed.

Thought I'd share. Maybe if I'd done this in high school, as a high school student - I would've been eligible for a hell of a lot more. Now that I'm in college, you have to attend a certain college or be (no offense meant or implied) black or hispanic or latino or native american or whatnot. One white female who goes to a dinky little private college in a highly stereotyped farmland of a state, well, doesn't exactly stand much of a chance for finding a scholarship.

Unfortunately, the best and only one I have ever come across was the Haynes Foundation Valedictorian scholarship only offered to valedictorians in my state, and probably only offered at my college. And you know what? It wasn't even that much. But I guess even the little things help.

I'd love it if I could find more of those little things.

Sadly, however, even my fantastic searching abilities uncover zip.

Until whenever, I'm going to attempt to sleep yet again.