Contributor: Speak Coffee
I hope I'm not being too optimistic.
I am genuinely an optimistic person. Inside of me, down in the deepest, darkest part of my core I believe in the good of the world. That things will work out when you strive to see them work. That good things happen to people who try to do good themselves. That the passionate find their passion. And that the energy around you is the energy you have sought to attract. I believe that if I believe in a positive future I will live some form of that future.
That said, speaking aloud specifics of my optimism scares the shit out of me.
Maybe it's superstitious of me. Maybe I'm afraid of jinxing things. Maybe I'm afraid of stating the future and then failing to achieve it to the nth degree I described.
One way or another, I can't sit down and say it's beginning. I'm beginning to live the life I want to live. Good things are happening to me. Because I am utterly afraid of being stripped of the good and called a liar.
It's much easier to complain about what one doesn't have than humbly rejoice with the world. Public rejoicing is distinctly hard to be humble about.
But I guess all this is just a tangent. The truth is that things have been working out okay for the time being: I got in to an MFA program (a good one that I really wanted to go to); I'm not going to have to mortgage my soul to pay for the program; I may have an in on nice housing; I may (but most likely won't) have an absolutely fabulous roommate from college to live with; I've been making money subbing as a secretary in the school system here; and I've been writing.
Okay so I've been writing really random pulp fiction but yea! for variety. Boo! for not finishing any of it. I've been submitting stories but it's all one or two stories that I finished before the start of the year. Truth be told I haven't finished a short story since New Years. Which is awkward as I have four started and unfinished in that time period.
I've also gotten into the MFA program for the fall, talked to the professor in charge of the fiction side of the MFA, talked with the graduate director once and now need to talk with her again, but through all this I remain unenrolled. I don't have classes signed up for, I don't have a student ID number, I'm not getting obnoxious amounts of mail from various departments at the university ... and it's making me anxious. Hopefully that will resolve itself this coming week, as I feel like I'm counting my chickens by telling people that I'm going next fall when their computers don't say that I'm going.
I'll still feel "up in the air" until I'm enrolled, and once I've done that I'm certain I'll feel "unsettled" until I find a place to live in my new city. Once I'm "settled" I'll have to deal with "first day at school" syndrome as well as "new kid on campus" -- although I've always liked being on new campuses and rarely have had any trouble finding myself at home in those places. But my point is that if it's not one thing it's another. As soon as one question is answered another one presents itself. We sit around saying if only I had this answer I'd feel okay, I'd feel happy, but when we get that answer we're nervous about something else.
My life is going well, it's even sounding like the future is going to go well for me, but I'm still nervous about all of it. I'm still wondered about the unanswered questions.
Showing posts with label accomplishments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accomplishments. Show all posts
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A Pat on the Back: Still No Mussels Involved
Contributor: Paralith
No, trying mussels will not be an item on my list of accomplishments. A general reference to my improved eating habits, however, is on the list:
1. Eating better
No, I don't mean I'm on a diet. I've never needed a diet, as my weight has always followed the bottom curve (though I do think my fat:muscle ratio is slowly increasing these days ...), which is kind of surprising, considering that carbs was about the only food group I consistently partook of while growing up. I was a super picky eater, as City Girl and Speak Coffee can attest to. But nowadays, I actually eat fruits and vegetables. And I enjoy them. That's right. I like them, as well as a wide variety of international foods that would have sent me diving behind the pews when I was in high school. Though I still have my penchants, which my unwillingness to try mussels proves - as well as a lingering love of Pasta Roni, aka, a big pile of salty, buttery, oily, noodles. Mmmmmmmm. You don't know how much willpower it takes not to go crazy when they have a ten for $10 sale at the grocery store. Which they do. All the damn time.
The main cause of my new eating habits is my boyfriend. On our first date he cooked dinner for me. During a lull in the preparations he chopped up an orange and handed me a piece - something I'd never eaten before. That's right, I'd never eaten an actual orange before. But I panicked, and did my best to eat it as though it was the most normal thing possible for me to. And, surprise surprise, it was pretty tasty. Amazing, the power of love - or, the power of not being embarrassed in front of a cute and charming boy. That works too.
2. Reading more books
This was a habit I had in high school that I regret losing. I was an avid reader and it contributed enough to my vocabulary that I earned that dorky nickname of the "walking dicti
onary." But, then college happened, and though I did try here and there to continue recreational reading, it just wasn't happening. At least I was being educated, though. After I left college and entered my Lost Year my efforts at both recreational and educational reading were more or less nonexistent. My brain stagnated. But today I have a big list of books accumulated, most science related and some recreational, but I'm getting back into it, and I want to get into it with a vengeance. I've wasted so many hours of my life that I could have spent improving my knowledge in my chosen field of study, that I don't want to waste anymore. In the past week I've finished two books (finish being the key word here, as the first one was started several months ago....ahem), and I hope to keep the trend up. And, if I'm lucky, get an even dorkier nickname, like "walking monkey encyclopedia" ... or something.
I feel like I may continue to write small "pat on the back" entries as things in my life progress, hopefully along the lines that I want them to. I think it will give me more courage to also write about things that I don't enjoy talking about as much. Hey, and then I can list that in my next "pat on the back" entry! Haha, I'm just kidding. Kind of .
No, trying mussels will not be an item on my list of accomplishments. A general reference to my improved eating habits, however, is on the list:
1. Eating betterNo, I don't mean I'm on a diet. I've never needed a diet, as my weight has always followed the bottom curve (though I do think my fat:muscle ratio is slowly increasing these days ...), which is kind of surprising, considering that carbs was about the only food group I consistently partook of while growing up. I was a super picky eater, as City Girl and Speak Coffee can attest to. But nowadays, I actually eat fruits and vegetables. And I enjoy them. That's right. I like them, as well as a wide variety of international foods that would have sent me diving behind the pews when I was in high school. Though I still have my penchants, which my unwillingness to try mussels proves - as well as a lingering love of Pasta Roni, aka, a big pile of salty, buttery, oily, noodles. Mmmmmmmm. You don't know how much willpower it takes not to go crazy when they have a ten for $10 sale at the grocery store. Which they do. All the damn time.
The main cause of my new eating habits is my boyfriend. On our first date he cooked dinner for me. During a lull in the preparations he chopped up an orange and handed me a piece - something I'd never eaten before. That's right, I'd never eaten an actual orange before. But I panicked, and did my best to eat it as though it was the most normal thing possible for me to. And, surprise surprise, it was pretty tasty. Amazing, the power of love - or, the power of not being embarrassed in front of a cute and charming boy. That works too.
2. Reading more books
This was a habit I had in high school that I regret losing. I was an avid reader and it contributed enough to my vocabulary that I earned that dorky nickname of the "walking dicti
onary." But, then college happened, and though I did try here and there to continue recreational reading, it just wasn't happening. At least I was being educated, though. After I left college and entered my Lost Year my efforts at both recreational and educational reading were more or less nonexistent. My brain stagnated. But today I have a big list of books accumulated, most science related and some recreational, but I'm getting back into it, and I want to get into it with a vengeance. I've wasted so many hours of my life that I could have spent improving my knowledge in my chosen field of study, that I don't want to waste anymore. In the past week I've finished two books (finish being the key word here, as the first one was started several months ago....ahem), and I hope to keep the trend up. And, if I'm lucky, get an even dorkier nickname, like "walking monkey encyclopedia" ... or something.I feel like I may continue to write small "pat on the back" entries as things in my life progress, hopefully along the lines that I want them to. I think it will give me more courage to also write about things that I don't enjoy talking about as much. Hey, and then I can list that in my next "pat on the back" entry! Haha, I'm just kidding. Kind of .
Monday, January 28, 2008
Pat on the back: quilt on the lap
Contributor: Speak Coffee
I'm going to give two even though I feel like the rest of the world won't put as much value on my accomplishments as I do.
1. I made a quilt.
It is the most tangible accomplishment I have since college graduation. I pieced it from scratch without a patter or guide book. Well, I used books as references for technique as well as the well of knowledge which my grandmother is on all things sewing. (She's addicted to Project Runway just like me.) Then I created the pattern that I would quilt into it all by myself, once again not using a pre-made pattern. I borrowed a quilt frame from my grandmother and spent three months hand stitching the quilting details into it.
But I was also someone who felt like I had no heritage or traditions to claim as my own. Where I saw friends who had a religious or cultural tradition passed on to them by their families I felt I had no similar connection. This project has brought me closer to the women of my extended family and made me more connected to relatives I have never even met. My grandmother beams with pride. She tells my great-Aunt Joyce who bubbles with enthusiasm that one of the "young people" is taking it up. My grandmother even invoked the name of her mother-in-law, my great-grandmother, the woman who taught my grandmother how to quilt, to tell me how proud she would be too if she was still alive to see my little project.
(That last bit is a joke: my "little" project fits a queen or a king sized mattress ... which of course I don't have.)
2. I left law school
Most people would read that phrase as a failure, not an accomplishment. But the truth is that it would have been easier for me to stay in law school than it was for me to leave it. It would have been simple to keep plodding down a well worn rut, to do the numbered and tasks listed out in front of me with bulleted subtasks, to take the degree and become that person. It would have been easy. Not because the work load was light -- on the contrary it was enough to bury a person alive and the whole system was designed to bury you not help dig you out -- but because there was no risk involved.
I knew exactly what was coming. Sure there was anxiety when you took your seat in lecture hall. Would you get called on? Were your briefs good enough? Would the professor ride your ass if you messed up or would he graciously and embarrassingly move onto the next victim? But every single law student knew that if they could just pass the bar they would be a lawyer. There was a surety among these people that was eerie. They were people with Plans, and were not to be stopped by puny things like humor or outlandish statements.
Annoyingly, I was the only person whose humor did not involve either alcohol or Regan references.
When I walked away it felt right. It felt so right. Most of the students whom I was anxious about telling because I was certain I would receive further snubbery than I had already expressed their envy that I had a plan outside of the hell of law school. It was odd that my greatest acceptance was found in leaving.
I had attended the Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop the summer prior to starting law school. It was supposed to be one last huzzah. Instead, when the week long intensive workshop ended and on that night I gave my reading to the assembled group, it felt like coming home.
It took me another four months to realize that home was behind me and walking down the well worn rut to being an attorney would only take me further away not closer to the one place where my heart was.
I'm going to give two even though I feel like the rest of the world won't put as much value on my accomplishments as I do.
1. I made a quilt.
It is the most tangible accomplishment I have since college graduation. I pieced it from scratch without a patter or guide book. Well, I used books as references for technique as well as the well of knowledge which my grandmother is on all things sewing. (She's addicted to Project Runway just like me.) Then I created the pattern that I would quilt into it all by myself, once again not using a pre-made pattern. I borrowed a quilt frame from my grandmother and spent three months hand stitching the quilting details into it.
Quilt top on the frame
Why quilt by hand? people ask me, thinking I've gone crazy. To immediately shut them up I tell them that you can't quilt on your average $200 sewing machine and that the cost of a machine that can handle the quilting is outrageous for someone who doesn't know when they'll ever get around to making a second quilt. Properly mollified, I tell them the real answer: it's tradition. The women of my family have been making quilts for generations, and always doing the quilting part by hand. You should see some of the beautiful things they've made over the years. Always with tiny squares (if your smallest piece of fabric is bigger than 4x4" finished you're made a "quick and simple" project according to them). Always with tiny, tiny, even stitches (mine aren't as tiny but, damnit, they're even!)
But I was also someone who felt like I had no heritage or traditions to claim as my own. Where I saw friends who had a religious or cultural tradition passed on to them by their families I felt I had no similar connection. This project has brought me closer to the women of my extended family and made me more connected to relatives I have never even met. My grandmother beams with pride. She tells my great-Aunt Joyce who bubbles with enthusiasm that one of the "young people" is taking it up. My grandmother even invoked the name of her mother-in-law, my great-grandmother, the woman who taught my grandmother how to quilt, to tell me how proud she would be too if she was still alive to see my little project.
(That last bit is a joke: my "little" project fits a queen or a king sized mattress ... which of course I don't have.)
2. I left law school
Most people would read that phrase as a failure, not an accomplishment. But the truth is that it would have been easier for me to stay in law school than it was for me to leave it. It would have been simple to keep plodding down a well worn rut, to do the numbered and tasks listed out in front of me with bulleted subtasks, to take the degree and become that person. It would have been easy. Not because the work load was light -- on the contrary it was enough to bury a person alive and the whole system was designed to bury you not help dig you out -- but because there was no risk involved.
I knew exactly what was coming. Sure there was anxiety when you took your seat in lecture hall. Would you get called on? Were your briefs good enough? Would the professor ride your ass if you messed up or would he graciously and embarrassingly move onto the next victim? But every single law student knew that if they could just pass the bar they would be a lawyer. There was a surety among these people that was eerie. They were people with Plans, and were not to be stopped by puny things like humor or outlandish statements.
Annoyingly, I was the only person whose humor did not involve either alcohol or Regan references.
When I walked away it felt right. It felt so right. Most of the students whom I was anxious about telling because I was certain I would receive further snubbery than I had already expressed their envy that I had a plan outside of the hell of law school. It was odd that my greatest acceptance was found in leaving.
I had attended the Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop the summer prior to starting law school. It was supposed to be one last huzzah. Instead, when the week long intensive workshop ended and on that night I gave my reading to the assembled group, it felt like coming home.
It took me another four months to realize that home was behind me and walking down the well worn rut to being an attorney would only take me further away not closer to the one place where my heart was.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Tougher than the GRE
Contributor: City Girl
This topic really has me stumped. I'm really good at bitching about life and complaining about the many many things I have done wrong since graduating, but I'm not so great at pin-pointing the things I'm proud of. The main problem comes from the fact that things I was proud of at the time have become things I now consider mistakes. For example, spending money that I would now very much like to have back in my bank account on the acting program I was in over the summer. I was super pscyhed to be accepted and thought I had totally kicked ass, but since returning to the city I realized that I no longer want to be an actor, so now I consider it a waste of time and money.
Oh, but there was that time when I...no wait.
Oh, but then I did start going to the gym and...nope, didn't do that either.
But I did start eating better and...nevermind, also didn't do that.
Um, I haven't had a cigarette in ten days. Does that count? I'm sure I'll break down again eventually, because I don't think there is such a thing as "quitting" for a smoker. For the time being I'm pretty happy with myself for holding out for this long, since it was part of my New Years resolution, but even thinking about how I'm proud of myself for not smoking makes me think of smoking and makes me want to light up.
I guess I'm pretty proud of myself for landing this internship, which I do like for the most part. I can't fully feel good about it for a few months when I find out if it really did lead to a job with a steady pay check and health insurance or if I'll be moving back home to live with my cats in my parents' basement, but for now I'm pretty happy about it.
I also think it's pretty cool that we said we were going to start a blog and we actually did. Go team!
This topic really has me stumped. I'm really good at bitching about life and complaining about the many many things I have done wrong since graduating, but I'm not so great at pin-pointing the things I'm proud of. The main problem comes from the fact that things I was proud of at the time have become things I now consider mistakes. For example, spending money that I would now very much like to have back in my bank account on the acting program I was in over the summer. I was super pscyhed to be accepted and thought I had totally kicked ass, but since returning to the city I realized that I no longer want to be an actor, so now I consider it a waste of time and money.
Oh, but there was that time when I...no wait.
Oh, but then I did start going to the gym and...nope, didn't do that either.
But I did start eating better and...nevermind, also didn't do that.
Um, I haven't had a cigarette in ten days. Does that count? I'm sure I'll break down again eventually, because I don't think there is such a thing as "quitting" for a smoker. For the time being I'm pretty happy with myself for holding out for this long, since it was part of my New Years resolution, but even thinking about how I'm proud of myself for not smoking makes me think of smoking and makes me want to light up.
I guess I'm pretty proud of myself for landing this internship, which I do like for the most part. I can't fully feel good about it for a few months when I find out if it really did lead to a job with a steady pay check and health insurance or if I'll be moving back home to live with my cats in my parents' basement, but for now I'm pretty happy about it.
I also think it's pretty cool that we said we were going to start a blog and we actually did. Go team!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Pat Yourself on the Back: I Think I Need an Upper.
So far I have carried the least weight on this blog when it comes to inspiring posts. While this may not be the most original of ideas, I think it will be fun for us.
A lot of our Lost Year revolves around failure - around those plans and ideas we had about Real Life that just went down the toilet. And, let's face it, it's not fun to write about your failures all the time. So tell me: what have you done, whether it be from the beginning of your Lost Year or from just earlier today, that you're proud of? That makes you feel accomplished? And I mean in even the tiniest, smallest of ways - or the big fat ways, if that's what floats your boat! (Floating....big and fat....oh, I'm awful.)
Write down as many things as you want, anything that you want - from "Ohmycrap I figured out what I want to do with my life!!!" to "I tried mussels today, and I didn't like them just like I knew I wouldn't (and I spit them all over the table) but dammit at least I tried them!"
Too bad I still haven't had the guts to try eating a mussel. Slime + food = just doesn't sound pleasant.
A lot of our Lost Year revolves around failure - around those plans and ideas we had about Real Life that just went down the toilet. And, let's face it, it's not fun to write about your failures all the time. So tell me: what have you done, whether it be from the beginning of your Lost Year or from just earlier today, that you're proud of? That makes you feel accomplished? And I mean in even the tiniest, smallest of ways - or the big fat ways, if that's what floats your boat! (Floating....big and fat....oh, I'm awful.)
Write down as many things as you want, anything that you want - from "Ohmycrap I figured out what I want to do with my life!!!" to "I tried mussels today, and I didn't like them just like I knew I wouldn't (and I spit them all over the table) but dammit at least I tried them!"
Too bad I still haven't had the guts to try eating a mussel. Slime + food = just doesn't sound pleasant.
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