Thursday, March 24, 2011

A bit like Romans 7.

Some things (which are really all rooted in some THING) I've been noticing about myself. (The aforementioned some THING is not necessarily a new revelation to me or my blog, but the more I think about it, the more clearly I see it in all areas of my life.)


When I want to get up early, I often stay up late.
When I know I can sleep as long as I wish, I often go to bed early.

I have a fondness for recipes containing strawberries, and generally all strawberry-flavored edibles.
I have never eaten a whole, plain, unaffected strawberry. I've tried. I can't do it. I don't like them.

I can be one of the most obedient, obliging, people you will ever meet.
I have one of the strongest, and often one of the most unreasonable, "fight the power," "go against the flow" instincts I have ever seen.

At the rate I consume ketchup and various tomato sauces, they could be considered a main course.
I don't like raw tomatoes.

Give me a bowl of nuts and I will be a happy snacker.
Put them in my baked goods, and, although I will thank you for them, I will give those baked goods to someone else.

Despite improvement, public speaking is something that still makes me shake.
I'll sing in front of anyone, anytime, and I'll even dance around while I do it.

I love teaching.
I avoid even the thought of getting a job as a school teacher.

I really like to make food.
On most days, I can give or take eating without really caring either way. (So come over and let me feed you!)

I really like home. I hope to have a place of my own one day.
I can't seem to stay home for more than a month. Give me a few weeks off the road, and I'm itching to go somewhere.

I have a method for everything from eating bananas to loading forks in the dishwasher.
My room is in an almost constant state of disorder.

Monochromatic, symmetrical things give me a sense of calm when I see them, much like some people describe when they see the beach, or a bold sunset, or a bold sunset on the beach.
My room is anything but monochromatic and symmetrical.

I love people.
People make me turn into a stuttering, nervous child facing their worst nightmare.

On the whole, I don't like TV, most movies, and a lot of things in the media and popular culture.
I'm pretty handy in pop culture trivia games.



I feel like now would be an appropriate time to quote Walt Whitman.

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

Monday, March 14, 2011

Life as a bad musical.

Now that I am on the verge of graduating, I have come to appreciate my life as a student more than I have before. It's similar to how so many people on the verge of death seem to appreciate life so much more than they ever did while they were in the midst of living it. Funny how that happens. Coming back from that digression, though, as much as I appreciate my position as student, there are still some things that I don't like so much, and which I don't see myself missing once this time in my life is behind me.

One of those things is this: I am often called upon to write about things I know nothing about, and to do it intelligently, and convincingly enough to fool people into believing I actually do know what I'm saying.

Like now, for instance. I have a take-home mid-term in my Restoration to Eighteenth Century English Lit class. Two essays on two subjects he has provided out of a list of nine, and it's due tomorrow. I'm working on it right now. But I really don't feel like I know enough to write two essays.

I almost feel like I'm lying, intentionally misleading. Like my school career has been, in part, a lesson in how to be a good liar.

One way to look at this is that I've subjected myself to it. I decided to go to school and be an English student. I decided to play by the rules of the system and agree to mostly comply with the expectations of my teachers, and while those expectations do not always require writing comprehensive papers on things I do not understand, if I wish for a good grade, it is expected that I will do everything I can in order to get it, and to not try to do so, even when I'm mostly clueless, is a lack of effort on my part, and possibly a sign of laziness. Therefore I talk in intellectual circles that use carefully crafted language to make it sound like I'm making progress, and not pulling a Ren Stevens and singing a two-minute song whose only content is the fact that the first moon landing was in 1969, or trying to emulate the clever cast of Whose Line being challenged to stop the show.

Of course, another way to look at it is that I haven't subjected myself to it, that I have no choice in the matter, that's just the way things are, and everybody has to do it at some point.

Either way, I don't like it. Practicing deception goes against the way I desire to live.

And I'm not very good at it. Especially not in day-to-day interactions with people. Don't ask me to lie for you. If I have to keep it up for very long or try hard to make it convincing, it won't hold water. I do admit I am better at faking it in writing, but anybody who contains a measure of shrewdness can see through it. Which is why my papers where I'm pulling a Ren Stevens don't make excellent grades, and have comments like "You're falling into explication here. The assignment wasn't to retell me the story, something I already know." Well, yeah, I'm retelling the story, because I don't know what else to say! And I'm hoping that my rambling will cover that up.

But it doesn't. (Fluff my Garfield!)

"A man of knowledge uses words with restraint...." Proverbs 17:27


As an addendum, I was recently declared by a woman I know to be "anti-establishment," and I'm certain this is evidence of that. I agree with her assessment.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Peering through my fingertips.

I have every intention of writing something of substance on here at some point. Well-crafted texts don't just pour out of me like a faucet, though. It takes time and great care to bring them forth. I currently have neither an abundance of time, nor the energy to intensely care, thus that point is not right now.

Right now I'm just a little bit happy, and I also feel like shaking my head at myself a little bit.

From my experience, writers can be rather fragile people. (I think I'm not the only one, right?) As my job description right now says that most of what I'm required to do is write, I offer myself up to be broken and pummeled quite often. Sometimes I do it with a straight face and stern gaze, daring anyone to challenge me and win. Other times I hide my face in my hands, and only take them away long enough to barely push my work out there, then swiftly put them over my face again, bracing myself for an attack that I know is going to break me.

And sometimes I do a mixture of both. In fact, I'm quite often a vision of both Jekyll and Hyde simultaneously.

Recently I've been living with my hands over my face. A while ago, in my 19th Century American Lit class, we turned in our first papers. The Tuesday before spring break, which would be approximately a week and a half ago now, those papers were returned to us. I love my professor in that class. But I knew she was going to grade firmly and comment about every sentence I wrote. I couldn't handle it. As soon as I got the paper, I put it in my bag, and postponed looking at it.

The rest of the week flew by. Spring break began and I bolted out of town. After six days, I came back home, and I remembered that paper sitting in my notebook. It wasn't imperative that I look at it yet. I had other work to do. And I didn't want to be distracted about her comments and my grade while I attempted to do other work. It could wait.

Until today. Just thirty minutes ago. I said, "Okay, enough Emily. Just do it. Get it over with. If you need to rewrite it, you need to know that sooner rather than later, and not put it off until the night before it's due, then panic because you don't know what you're going to do." A boldness arose within me, and I pulled my fingertips back from my eyes just enough to sternly gaze with one, and quiver with the other.

I began at the top of the first page, and made my way through the comments. Oh, cringe. Yeah, you're right that was awkward. Oh, hey, she liked my thesis! Yeah, that phrase was high-schooly. You're right, I was over generalizing. Yes, that was vague. Oh, she thinks that sentence was beautifully constructed! And she's using smiley faces. But yeah, those commas are off. And I quoted that incorrectly?! What happened to my intimate knowledge of MLA? I'm a senior in college, and I look like I don't know what I'm doing. Remind me to not write a paper in three hours again.

There were some delightful moments, but it was overall a grotesquely face-contorting experience. Time to flip to the back and look at my grade. I know, that I know, that I know, that she's not going to have a grade on it, but rather a big "REVISE!"

.......wait.....I made a B-??? Really? But some of my paragraphs were really watery, and I didn't tie them to my thesis well at all. And my transitions were abysmal. You dissected my paper into small pieces and found much of it lacking, how can you give me a B-?

But wait.....I made a B-.....what are you nitpicking over, and worrying about, silly girl? You should have just sucked it up and looked at it when you got it. B- or no, is the grade you make on a paper really going to affect you that much? You act like you're going to die. You're not known for drama, why are you being dramatic now? Just stop.

Like I said before, I'm kinda happy. Grades above a B- are always hoped for, of course, but this is still pretty good. And I'm kinda sheepish. Acting like it's the end of the world, and cringing at a paper worthy of a B- doesn't cast a graceful light on me at all. Oh well.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Maybe in the morning....

Home. It's a good place to be.

I was away from home for 6 days this trip. That's longest I've been gone since Christmas. Saying it that way makes it seem like a long time since my last elongated period out of town, but it really isn't. We're only in early March.

Getting back to what I was saying, I'm home. I'm grateful for that. I've been looking forward to getting back and being able to take a breath for a moment.

I did feel relieved for a short time after I got home.

But soon, I started feeling more pressure than I've felt since I left my house six days ago. Rather than relaxing, overwhelming feelings are creeping in.

I know why this is. Then again I don't know why this is. It's unsettling. I need to go to bed. To go to sleep. Maybe in the morning I can think. Maybe in the morning I won't feel overwhelmed.

...........