A catharsis...

It's weird. I never thought I'd be here. You're wondering where here is. Here is applied for Grad school, waiting, and missing BYUH. I have literally thousands of old emails stored up. I thought I'd go through and delete a bunch. I had some there from 2007. It's really funny to see my emails from 2008 through now. I can tell where in the semester I was without looking at the date of the email simply looking at which professors I was getting emails from: "Oh, that email is from so-and-so, that was my second semester of school" It's odd. Sometimes I feel like I'm having a heart attack all the time (I'm sure my love of hot cocoa and immense dislike of working out isn't helping). I feel stressed all the time. I miss Hawaii. I always knew I would. How does anyone live anywhere for 11 years, and then not miss it when you leave? November wasn't so bad. I had NaNoWriMo to keep my mind occupied. National Novel Writing Month. I did it, by the way. I wrote my 50,000 words. It wasn't the first time I had written that much, but it was the first time I had written it all within the time-span of a single month. This won't make sense. I feel jittery and nervous. I'm a rabbit, and everyone else is a fox. I'm just waiting for the pounce. I can't exactly fully explain what I'm feeling. It's the limbo period, and I hate limbo, the game, the song, the metaphysical meaning... every thing. I'm ready for Christmas. I'm ready for something to take my mind off of school. It's odd that I'm actually somewhere where it could snow (probably won't but still) and all I crave is the ocean and rain. That's Christmas to me: grey skies, rain, and a crashing ocean. It's going to be a long three months...

Nanowrimo

I’ve heard about National November Writers’ Month (NaNoWriMo) for years. I tried it last year and failed only because I didn’t get the words finished (50,000) by the end of the month. I think I only made it to a little over 19K. Here’s the thing: I’m trying again this year. That little 19K novel has grown to over 75K and is barely half-finished. I’m fully confident that I will not only finish my 50K this month, but I will also NOT finish the story by the end of this month. (Did you catch that? Yes on the 50K words, No on the end of the story.)

You see the nanowrimo story I'm writing this month is the second installment of the story i started last November. This story has the potential to be awesome. I just need to write it…

Now we get to the part I’ve come to write about: I’ve been writing (roughly) 1,667 words every day. I needed to double that yesterday (which i didn’t), and triple that today (which turns into quadruple since I failed to double yesterday). Today I sat down to write, and the words are not only not coming to me…I also have been overtaken by an overwhelming desire to take a nap…

When writing is what I want to do, the words flow. When writing is what I need to do, the desire to nap increases…

Waiting for the next set

I’ve always been able to look into my crystal ball and see my destination: AP classes, graduation, college, marriage. Lately, all I can see is fog. White fog. Fog that says, “Girl, you are asking the wrong crystal ball because I don’t see anything in your future.”

Everyone else is moving on. They’ve got their own places, new jobs, new classes, new cities, new towns. I was that girl. The girl who went to college right after high school. The girl who finished college early. Who was going to teach English in a foreign country. Who was going to worry about grad school later.

It’s frustrating. I feel stagnant. Everything around me is moving, and growing, and changing. And I’m here. Still here. Still waiting.

Jake asked me why I was feeling blue, and I confessed everything. Everyone else is starting school. What if I’m out for too long? What if I lose everything I learned? What if I don’t get accepted? There is nothing wrong with being a mom, but I don’t want to give up my dreams of my PhD either. I can do both. I know I can…I know WE can. What if it’s not in the cards?  Then Jake reminded me of something I told him once while we were out surfing: “You can’t worry about the wave that already came, or the wave that’s on its way. All you can do is ride the wave that you’re on.”

I, being in a particularly sour mood, said, “I’m not even on a wave.” Jake, being brilliant and clever, said, “What about all the waiting between sets? That’s where we are.”

and I get that. I get that we’re in limbo. We’re in overqualified-yet-not-qualified-enough land; we’re in going-to-grad-school-but-haven’t-actually-applied land. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m not a big fan of limbo (the game or the figurative use of the word).

I get it. We’re in between sets, not an undergrad, but not yet a graduate. I got it.

Thinking about it in surfing terms makes it a little more bearable…a little.

I guess I’m feeling ready to move on, ready for the next challenge, ready to get up and go. But it doesn’t matter, because I can’t make the ocean give me another set. I can’t control how big or small the next set will be, or how many waves will be in it, or when it will come. I just have to sit. Wait. Be Patient.

So, until the next set hits. I’ll be sitting pretty, trying to patiently wait like the shark bait I am.

 

Oo-ha-ha

The ache in writing

I love writing. I adore writing with all my heart. There is one thing that drives me nuts about writing: planning. I have so many ideas racking around inside my head, and I know the answer to my puzzle of storyline is locked away somewhere amongst the other ideas. Here’s the part that gets hard: sorting. I know I need to sit down, turn everything off, and just draw out what is going to happen. Except I’m a people planner. I need someone (usually the hubs) to plan with, and to bounce ideas off of. I need to talk about what’s going to happen before I can write it down. When I say it, I can sort it. I love writing. I adore writing. I just need someone else there to help me plan.

 

Thanks hubs. ;)

Change of Heart?

Not quite yet; I mean, I’m sure I’ll get there eventually. But here’s the thing, every time I think about Europe, a little part of me turns bitter because my sister was sent there and I had to earn it. I don’t want any of my experience with Europe to be bitter. I want to enjoy every second because I deserve it. I earned it; I spent weeks writing the paper that got accepted into the conference that finally gave me the excuse to go; I spent weeks—months even—saving the money so we could go.

I was reading my friend’s blog, and I am a huge believer in Karma. One of the quotes she put up really hit home: “How People Treat You is Their Karma, How You React is Yours” Wayne Dyer. So my parents and sister may be setting up some bad Karma for themselves, but how I react to it is all my karma, and I don’t want any bad juju out there. Am I over it? Not by a long shot, but I’m not going to focus on it anymore. I’m not going to let it taint my taste of Europe.

Working at Walmart

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

― Confucius

 

I’ve never really had a job where I felt like I was working. Don’t get me wrong—there were plenty of days I didn’t want to go to my job, but once there, I never felt like I was working.

When I was lifeguarding, I liked being there. I liked my job. I liked the people I worked with. I wasn’t crazy about jumping into freezing cold water (by Hawaii’s standards) to save the same kid all day after repeatedly telling him not to jump off the rocks, but even jumping in after that kid day after day was worth it because I was helping someone. I was saving someone’s life, someone’s child, someone’s future spouse, someone’s future grandparent. The freezing water was worth it.

As a tutor at the Reading/Writing Center, I never saved anyone’s life…but I saved plenty of grades (or at least, I like to think I did). I loved my job because it meant I got to work with English, one of my favorite subjects, and share my knowledge with others. I got to explain why we use “the” and when we use “a/an.” It was a mentally exhausting job, and I loved it. Even though that job got a little tedious sometimes (like when you felt like you’d tutored the same paper fifty times, or when the same student would come in everyday, ask for a walk-in and then sit there and expect you to do their homework), I still loved it. I felt like I was making a difference, even if it was only to one student, it was worth all the craziness because I was helping people.

I taught English 101, and boy was that a challenge, but it was a challenge I welcomed. I had some students that weren’t the easiest to teach, and others that broke my heart, but I was helping people. I tried to teach my students how to really think. I tried to introduce them to literature in a way that would make them love it

I now work at Walmart. I’ve worked there for about a week and I don’t really feel like I’m helping anybody by stocking mounds of frosting. Sure, I’m helping promote heart attacks and poor cholesterol, but somehow that feels contrary to my previous lifesaving experiences. I feel like everyday is work. It’s a chore to get there, it’s a chore to be there and my only reward is getting to go home. I was told that you don’t need a college education because you can get ahead in life with Walmart. That you’d have to be crazy to want to leave walmart with all the ‘wonderful’ opportunities it offers you. Fine. Call me crazy. I’ll take the student loans and an education over stocking boxes and ripping my hands up for eight hours any day. Yeah, initially, with student loans and fresh out of college, a manager at walmart might be making more money than someone who went to school, but I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game of Life, but going to college ensures you make more money than not.

But is money what it’s all about? Well for me, working at walmart? Yes. I’m only there to get a paycheck. I like the people I work with, but I don’t like my job. What it comes down to for me is making money so I can be Crazy and go to grad school. Is making money what I’m really concerned about in the long run? Nope. I’m concerned about Confucius. I want to love what I do so I’ll never work another day in my life. And if I happen to get paid more than a manager at walmart, well then that’s just a plus. 

Grad School, Grad School, Wherefore art thou, Grad School?

So we’ve been preparing for grad schools. We bought the GRE book, we emailed all of our professors for information about grad schools (and most of them emailed back with terrific information!). So here are our list of candidates (for now, we may or may not add, or delete certain candidates):

1. Oxford
2. St. Andrews
3. University of Connecticut
4. University of Oregon
5. Brown
6. BYU (Provo)

any other helpful hints for us? Anyone know how long it takes to get a student work visa for the UK?

Just a Jumble of Jedi

This morning Jake and I drove over to the circuit park (i’m sure it has an official name, but that’s what i call it), and we say this little kid that made Jake say, “He’s my hero.” The little boy had on a complete Jedi costume, and was in an intense light saber duel with an invisible opponent. We smiled and joked that we want kids just like that; well, we drove on our way, and completely forgot about the kid. We came back, showered, and i had to run to Walmart to pick up some burnable cds, so off we set again; the little boy was still out there, only he’d been joined by a smaller boy (assumedly his little brother) who was also clad in his very own Jedi uniform. As we drove by, the smaller of the two boys was selecting his light saber of choice from a pile of them on the ground. Then Jake got the biggest grin on his face, and he said, “I know what we’ll do for Halloween when we’ve got all the kids. We’ll all dress up like Jedi, and they will call me ‘Master’ and they will be our padawans.”

Yes. This is the man I married.

Want to know the best thing about it all?

 

I’m really excited to have those little munchkins; those poor kids have no idea what they’re in for with us as parents. hahaha

 

(p.s. i’m not pregnant.)

Guess who is Employed?!

Ladies and Gentlebugs,

I can now announce that I have a job! I’ve known about it for a little while, but I didn’t want to say anything about it in case it fell through—things (like Korea) like that happen to us.

So I’ll be teaching a Technical Writing class—which, from what i understand, is like remedial remedial English. On your left is the book I’ll be using. I just need to read it…Honesty, no big deal; the class doesn’t start until April. So I have the rest of February and all of March to read it (of course don’t let me know that or else it will NEVER get done…haha). Jake is still looking, and we’re both getting a little bored with not having jobs. Yeah, it was nice at first—all day doing whatever we want…but one day you wake up and realize that there is NOTHING on your to-do list, and getting out of bed just doesn’t seem worth it—that is how you know that you need a job…oh and the fact that the money in your checking account keeps dropping. Haha.

We’ve mostly been keeping busy with people’s birthday presents we needed to pick up, filing taxes (Yeah, that bored), reading, writing, drawing, coloring; you know, anything that a 10-year-old (like old school 10-year-old, not a modern 10-year-old) would do for fun (minus filing taxes of course). Anyway, the plan is to KEEP looking for jobs (I have a for sure job that is only a term long; the girl that usually teaches this class is out on maternity leave, and so she’ll be back in the summer), figure out which grad school we’re going to go to (we’re leaning towards U of Oregon—the green duck one) and figure out how much we need to save up to make sure we have some where to stay while we’re in London. (if you know anywhere cheap where couples can go, that’d be sweet—we don’t want roommates, been there done that…) :D

“Come, and dream with me.”

Hugo.

I believe this is one of those movies you either get or you don’t.

I went and saw Hugo with my husband and brother-in-law today. They complained of a lack of plot line, action, or anything remarkably interesting. I found the opposite to be true. This little boy with his dark hair and bright blue eyes living in a world of machines found his way into my heart. Hugo touched me. It was magical. It was about a little lost boy finding his place, his purpose. It was about innocence, hope, dreams, adventure; it was about heartache, loss, and being lost, about not knowing who you are, or where you fit, about losing all the dreams you worked so hard for. It’s about fixing what was broken, finding what was lost, and finding the key that unlocks the path home. I feel changed; maybe it will wear off, but i hope it doesn’t. It was about magic. It was about love.

like i said, you either get it,

or you don’t.

 

and that’s okay, too.

A story without a title is a child without a name…

Here’s my dilemma (well it’s not technically a dilemma because the literal definition of dilemma is having to make a decision between two [di!] or more choices…and well, just keep reading): I have a story that’s about a third of the way written, and it is still nameless. (see, not technically a dilemma because there are no options I have to choose between)—I digress.

The real reason I’m so worried about this is because I usually come up with names first and stories after. This is the first time I’ve ever had a story (plot, characters, the whole shabang) and no title.

I guess it’s really no big deal, but I’ve been writing this story for a while, and I just kept thinking (and still am thinking) “Well, eventually the title will just come to you.” …But here I am, 51 pages later and still up a story without a title. I’m not looking for suggestions (because that means I’d have to share my plotline—which still isn’t worked out completely—with you so you could help me find an appropriate title); I guess I’m on here to just vent about it. I guess…I guess…seems like the older you get the more life becomes guesswork. :)

I think I’m going to snuggle up in bed, and see if I can get a couple more pages out today.

There’s no place like home…

well there is—for me, at least. I pretty much grew up in Hawaii. Now, most people think white Christmas; I don’t—I think wet Christmas. Now, this is the part when there joins here. In Eastern Oregon we do not have an ocean, but i can tell you what we do have: rain. and i love it. I recognize rain. i remember rain. I think it’s because of the rain I feel like it’s still December—instead of practically February.

Don’t get me wrong; I like snow—it’s not my favorite (i mean after warm beaches who can say “nah, I prefer ice to this mess”?) but I still like it. I think I just prefer rain. It’s closer to familiar. Oregon is really starting to grow on me. It’s got its own kind of pretty. There have even been days when I’ve walked outside and said “It’s a really nice day today.” (And then my mom calls to complain about how hot Hawaii is…thanks, Mom) :P

The truth is, as much as I miss Hawaii, and as much as I miss the ocean,
I’m home wherever Jake is. :D

 

Here’s a shot of the pretty rain of Oregon that makes me feel so at home:

God comforts man through his dreams

Jake told me this the day we had to put Bigotes down. I told him that I had had dreams all the night before of all of us standing in a room, crying and saying good-bye. I had dismissed it as negative thinking—in retrospect, I think it was God trying to prepare me for what was to come.

Last night I had another dream. Somehow Bigotes had come back to us. (I’ve been dreaming about him a lot lately). In this dream, I was holding him, and crying. We were going though it all over again. We had to put him down, again. Except, this time he could talk to me. Well—communicate his thoughts. He assured me everything would be okay, and everything would work out. He told me not to worry. I asked him if he’d watch over me, and he promised he would. i felt him leave me physically and join me spiritually.

i know what some of you must be thinking: He’s a cat. It was a dream.

Yes, he was a cat. In his physical form here on earth, he was a cat. A long-hair domestic. Spiritually, he was always more of a lion. He had what one of my best friends would call “little [cat] syndrome” He believed he was a lot bigger than he was (and he was pretty big). Yes, it was a dream. But many prophets were communicated to in dreams—why not a common girl by her common cat? Jake and I aren’t having the easiest time with no money and no jobs. Needless to say, i’ve been worried about the whole situation, perhaps this dream is just God’s way of comforting me. He gave me that sweet cat to comfort me in life, why not allow his comfort to continue even after he has moved on? Whether it was God or it was—as Scrooge would say—“a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, [or] a fragment of an underdone potato,” the dream gave me comfort.

This picture—a surprise for me concocted by Jake and executed by his wonderful Grandma Hibbert—hangs over our bed. I really feel that he watches over me. He’s my little guardian angel…with paws :)

“And I just played ‘til my fingers bled”

That’s what all the greats say. “One day I picked up the guitar, and I loved it so much I just played until my fingers bled.” We all want to be one of the greats. Recently I’ve discovered why I’m not. Let’s put it this way, my fingers aren’t bleeding but they are incredibly sore…so sore that they can’t push my steel strings down and if I kept playing it would sound awful. I love my guitar. It’s a Big Baby Taylor that I got from a boyfriend who got it from an uncle who got it for $20 at a yard sale. (the boyfriend was musically-inept; so he gave it to me. There aren’t many things that I kept after we broke up, but boyfriend or not that guitar has become my friend). She’s been with me through a lot. And we’ve sung our hearts out (she has a much better voice than I do).

I want to play til my fingers bleed, until i can’t feel them anymore, until i become so good Hendrix will recommend me, but let’s face it. My range is poor and my attention is short. I know i’ll play guitar until my dying day, but I’m also pretty confident it won’t ever be on a stage with Taylor Swift or Bruce Springsteen (or both), or even on a stage in a lonely bar with only a barmaid listening. and i’m ok with that (mostly). when i was a kid, i dreamed of becoming a professional singer. I wanted to stand on a stage in front of thousands of people and sing the songs that came from my heart, but the truth is i don’t think people would listen. They’d hear a song about starfruit and miss it for what its message is.

For now i’ll keep writing music, and playing in my room. I’ll keep playing until my fingers hurt so bad they should be bleeding…but aren’t. :) I’ll keep writing my stories (if i can ever find my thumbdrive) and I’ll keep dreaming, because that is what this blog is for: to keep record of all the dreams i hope will come true, as well as the ones that will stay just that: hopes of dreams.

I've become aware...

Recently I’ve noticed that no one actually reads this blog…except for me. And really, that’s fine. I don’t write it for you. I write it for me. That’s the point, right? So while I will continue to keep everyone updated on my Contor blog, this blog remains reserved for my innermost musings. I think that this is why no one reads them. I don’t think they make as much sense to anyone else as they do to me. And that’s ok too.
Here is my latest musing:
Last night I finished reading The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (I highly recommend it). It’s basically about a little old man (Mr. Mifflin) and his bookshop. There are characters who are rich and a narrator who is hilarious, but this is not the point—I believe—of this book. One thing I’ve always firmly believed (and still, to a degree, do) is that there is a vivid difference between books for entertainment and ‘literature.’ (yes, I’m one of those). This is where Morley and Mifflin got together to teach me. Does it matter? Does it matter if I’m reading Dickens or Meyer? To a degree, yes. One is considered canon and the other is not. But in today’s world where books take too long to satisfy us compared to the rest of life’s instant gratifications, I don’t think it matters what is being read, as long as reading is being done. I thank Rowling and Meyer; while I still think Rowling has power and complexities that far outshine Meyer’s overly adverb-ed and adjective-fied writing, both achieved the same goal: they caused kids to read. That’s the point. That’s the lesson. Mifflin says “The world has been printing books for 450 years, and yet gunpowder still has a wider circulation. Never Mind! Printer’s ink is the greater explosive: it will win.” How true. The pen is mightier than the sword. It has not only the power to destroy, but the power to create; and therein lies the true power to everything. If you disagree, or you think books are a waste of time, I suggest following one other tidbit of Mifflin’s advice: “It’s a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour glass, to let the particles run the other way.”