Hello all! Today I have been in a pretty great mood all day, partially due to the fact that it was sunny and warm all day! It was so nice to be outside for what little time I had to spend time in the sun. I spent time with some of my new acquaintances, some of whom I hope will become more. I really think I am getting the hang of this place. I just hope I can find a job...
Anyway I have also had a couple good conversations with a good friend from back home, and gotten some good work done on my school work. I am feeling great except a bit cooped up now that it is night and i have been sitting here for hours working on my stuff.
Back to the grind for me, hope everyone has a great night and tomorrow.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Fun Weekend!
This weekend was awesome, I got to spend time with some awesome people and see an amazing play.
I left campus on Saturday and headed into Portland. I hung out for a couple hours downtown and walked around to the library to my church and then later to Artist Repertory Theater to watch David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole. The production was amazing. I cried for most of the show, bear in mind that I am very empathetic, and I come easily to tears. This show really got me going, I mean I really got into it and was lost in it's world.
I have seen some of the actors in other productions and was amazed yet again at their amazing talent. The last time I saw Susannah Mars she was playing a highly comedic role in They Came From Way Out There she was pretty much one of my favorite characters in that show and she really showed her breadth in this show. From an alien Sunday school teacher to a grieving mother she really made it work.
Another person I need to mention in this posting is Jeff Seats. I friggin love that set. Can I move in? The clean lines and realistic style of the kitchen and everything. Great job! I am serious though, can I move in?
Yay, and thank you Carol Ann for letting me know about the show.
So that was the play, then I went with some of my favorite people from ART and Kris to Cassidy's to hang out. That was fun then Kris and I ran someone home and crashed for the night after exploring the wonders of her Pirate's of The Caribbean valentine set. On Sunday we spent pretty much the whole day together and went to church, ahd some good times there and then out shopping. We hit Ikea, oh my god that was awesome, Marshall's (see pants picture below, yes they really are as tall as she is!), and a few other shops out by the airport.
Now I am back at school, kind of sore and excited for the week ahead, here we go!
I left campus on Saturday and headed into Portland. I hung out for a couple hours downtown and walked around to the library to my church and then later to Artist Repertory Theater to watch David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole. The production was amazing. I cried for most of the show, bear in mind that I am very empathetic, and I come easily to tears. This show really got me going, I mean I really got into it and was lost in it's world.
I have seen some of the actors in other productions and was amazed yet again at their amazing talent. The last time I saw Susannah Mars she was playing a highly comedic role in They Came From Way Out There she was pretty much one of my favorite characters in that show and she really showed her breadth in this show. From an alien Sunday school teacher to a grieving mother she really made it work.
Another person I need to mention in this posting is Jeff Seats. I friggin love that set. Can I move in? The clean lines and realistic style of the kitchen and everything. Great job! I am serious though, can I move in?
Yay, and thank you Carol Ann for letting me know about the show.
So that was the play, then I went with some of my favorite people from ART and Kris to Cassidy's to hang out. That was fun then Kris and I ran someone home and crashed for the night after exploring the wonders of her Pirate's of The Caribbean valentine set. On Sunday we spent pretty much the whole day together and went to church, ahd some good times there and then out shopping. We hit Ikea, oh my god that was awesome, Marshall's (see pants picture below, yes they really are as tall as she is!), and a few other shops out by the airport.
Now I am back at school, kind of sore and excited for the week ahead, here we go!
Friday, February 15, 2008
Snow Patrol - Set The Fire To The Third Bar
Ok, I know, 2 posts in a day, that's a bit obsessive. I just had to post this video, I had the album going while I was studying and when it came to this song, it just struck me yet again, how much I adore this song. I don't particularly like Martha Wainwright, but I just love this song anyway. Something about the lyrics set me back to that childhood dream I had that my soulmate was far from me. Anyway, here it is.
Day After
No...not that kinda of day after. Get your minds out of the gutter, you know who you are. It is now the day after Valentine's Day! I would like to give my congratulations to those people who became engaged, or promised to each other. Also my condolences to those who were dumped on the most "romantic" holiday of the year.
I am also posting a part of a free write we did in my expository writing class. Our assignment was to write a story that was as if we were coming back to a very special spot after a long absence and we were not physically alive, we could be ghosts spirits or any other type of mythical or fantastical beast. We were also to describe with a sense of a wide focus and then coming in close. we were to bring out the poignancy of being somewhere special that we couldn't really go back to ever again.
I am going to preface my writing with a small description. I had a wonderful teacher in kindergarten and first grade. She had us describe what the inside of out minds looked like. she described hers as a house with a huge garden where ideas grew and inside all the rooms she stored memories and certain rooms had locks where secrets were kept. My mind apparently looks like a castle as you will see. In my story I described the world in my mind...
The real world goes like this, we create for ourselves a little patch of perfectness. We live our lives out in the world the real world but all the interesting things occur in the inner world. We create a system and a home for our knowledge and experiences that no one can enter but ourselves. I am gone from the real world and as I yearn to rest I am urged to return, just for a moment to my own mind, the inner sanctum in my interior world.
I float back through fog and purple mist to a valley surrounded by peaked mountains crested with crispy glaciers. I glide along the down the mountainside over the evergreens and alder leaves to skim the valley floor. My passing is unmarked unseen, the game birds along the river that meanders across the wide bottomed valley aren't flushed to flight. I am fleshless and substance-less- all that is left to me is a consciousness. The lone being to mark my passage is the shadowy watchman who waits for my return. At the opposite end of the valley is a small rise where a fortress gleams.
I float toward my sanctum unsure of what I will find there. I had lived out my "real world life" and neglected the inner. The outside had been a shell crumbling from the inside out, and no one had noticed.
I came to the gate and I reached out...I forgot, I no longer have a body. So I pass through the thick wooden panels that make up the gate and enter the courtyard of my mind. There is my fountain of youth, still burbling away. How I long to feel those cool droplets against my skin once more. The fish are long gone, their splashes no longer joining in the song that once filled this space.
This piece is unfinished and hopefully I will take the time to finish it...
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Lord of the Flies-William Golding
In my English Literature class we had an exciting assignment I never thought I would be able to do. We had to write a "Microtheme" a short paper on a topic from the book Lord of The Flies. The paper has to fit on a 7x4 card, and could only be size 10 font or larger. I could have hand written it, but no one would have been able to read it. I love my paper. I normally am the type of person to ramble on and on, you may have noticed. But I think I did a good job on this one. it could be any kind of paper. I chose to do a narrative that describes Ralph after he comes back to teh "real world" and the changes he wants to make. My paper will follow this posting. Keep in mind the short format and my normally lyrical writing style.
Remembering Piggy
He is crammed in front of the typewriter, his large hands look out of place rippling with lightening speed across the keyboard. He has a deadline to meet; this article is due any second. The editor breathing down his neck is the last thing he needs tonight. He suddenly bolts upright; his size now becomes apparent, his hair standing tall from having hands raked though it brushes the door frame as he snatches the article from the typewriters mechanical grip and dashes out of his office. “Here it is, the article on the protests,” he is already on his way back out the door to gather his things and head out into the night.
He has reached his home, a small flat in a fairly good neighborhood, he could afford better on his salary but he is more than happy with his current situation. As he enters his home he reaches out automatically to play the messages on his answering machine “Ralph, great job on that article, you really got into the head of those guys. I’ll make sure that I send anymore of these your way. Have a great night,” that was his editor. As Ralph passes into the kitchen the mirror catches his reflection, his large boxer’s body, so out of sync with the thickly framed glasses covering his eyes. If he were to remove those glasses one could see the gentleness that has settled there.
As he cooks himself a quick meal, the smell of the meat cooking flashes him back to another time, another place, long ago and far away. The pig roasting on a spit the crowd of underfed boys and Him, Ralph hates to think of that horrible nickname and that he was once stupid and young. He can’t believe that he doesn’t even know his name…Piggy. That is the only name he had. How cruel we were, he thinks, how idiotic. Could we not see that Piggy would have saved us with that bright mind? Piggy…Ralph hurriedly snatches the singed meat out of the pan and moves into his study to cram himself in front of yet another typewriter. But this is Ralph’s own space, his first apartment after living in the “Facility” as he liked to think of it. After being rescued from the island all the “Found Boys” were placed in a rehabilitation center and housed like animals until they could be reunited with families or deemed fit or unfit to enter the New World. That’s what it was called, the New World, rebuilt after the war into a world without borders.
Ralph had been the first of the boys to be released, he had thought that his father would come for him, but he found out later his father and his entire ship’s complement had been lost during the war. So, he had started his life new, fresh, and decided that he would write. He held on to every scrap of humanity he could and made it through college and got his job with a newspaper. He started with the classifieds and worked his way up, and now he was the go-to-guy for articles concerning the protests that were coming ever more frequently. He could empathize with these freedom fighters, but he had been through enough violence during his time on the island. He decided a while ago that he would never again be a party to violence. “We were just a pack of kids,” he mutters as he settles in to work. Not all of the boys had been as lucky as he was, many of them never left the “Facility.” Ralph went to visit them infrequently; it was just too hard to see those boys without seeing the one face he was looking for, Piggy.
The other boys would never admit it, but it was because of Piggy that they had all made it through as long as they did. He had been the voice of reason during all that madness. And yet, there was no one Ralph could tell his story to, no one had known his real name, so even if his family had made it through the war there was no way to find them. Ralph had made it his life’s work to tell the real story of Piggy, the brave and true, who had stood for all that was right on that godforsaken island. He poured the wisdom of Piggy onto the page in a manifesto that would hopefully find its way to the Governors. They could use a bit of Piggy’s insight. They thought that ruling with might and fervor was enough, even Ralph could understand this was not the best course of action. Jack had tried that, and where had it gotten him? He was locked in a solitary cell after trying to win control of the “Facility.” He thought he could regain power and with the help of his lieutenant, Roger, take over the world. In Ralph’s thinking, even if the “Found Boys” managed to escape, no one would listen to the savage rabble. Surely the world at large wasn’t that idiotic.
Democracy, free will, rights, and community were the ideas sprouting from the words flowing out of Ralph’s hands. Piggy would have wanted those things; he would have fought for them. This society was probably headed for disaster if someone didn’t make a change soon. There didn’t need to be so many laws, everything had a law. People of this ethnicity must live here, and work these jobs. People above a certain age must move into “Homes,” a similar construct to that of the “Facility.” Unwanted, useless citizens were crammed into buildings little better than warehouses.
Certain groups had begun to gather the force to start fighting the Governors, so that life could be free for all. Those rights that the old leaders had striven for, the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, had been long forgotten, and left to rot on shelves that none but the politically elite could even know existed. In his work as a reporter Ralph had come into contact with a man born into the elite but who wanted some semblance of a democracy instead of this semi-fascist-cum-communist whatever it was that was in power now. This man had risked his life to obtain for Ralph a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Fundamental Laws of England so the formulation of a new regime could be built on the back of the old.
That had been Piggy’s idea back on the island; he had wanted a society based on the one they had been born in. But his ideas had been ignored because they were unpopular. The boys had just wanted to play at being savages and hunt all day, so they did. And in the process burned all the vegetation off he island twice and they had ended up with three dead boys. They had told no one about the first little boy to go missing, only of Simon and Piggy. Ralph was guilty in both of their deaths, if he had just been stronger, if Jack hadn’t…But none of those thought could bring either of them back. So Ralph turned once again to the typewriter and continued to let the ideas flow. “No one person should have absolute power over another. We are all accountable for our own actions and for helping others. We must all share in the responsibilities of guiding and protecting the children of the earth, so that we may prevent a future world holocaust.” With these final words Ralph tugged the paper free. He gathered all the pages and placed them into the binder. It was time to take this to the Governors and the people. Changes must be made, and with Piggy’s wisdom, they could be made, Ralph was sure.
Remembering Piggy
He is crammed in front of the typewriter, his large hands look out of place rippling with lightening speed across the keyboard. He has a deadline to meet; this article is due any second. The editor breathing down his neck is the last thing he needs tonight. He suddenly bolts upright; his size now becomes apparent, his hair standing tall from having hands raked though it brushes the door frame as he snatches the article from the typewriters mechanical grip and dashes out of his office. “Here it is, the article on the protests,” he is already on his way back out the door to gather his things and head out into the night.
He has reached his home, a small flat in a fairly good neighborhood, he could afford better on his salary but he is more than happy with his current situation. As he enters his home he reaches out automatically to play the messages on his answering machine “Ralph, great job on that article, you really got into the head of those guys. I’ll make sure that I send anymore of these your way. Have a great night,” that was his editor. As Ralph passes into the kitchen the mirror catches his reflection, his large boxer’s body, so out of sync with the thickly framed glasses covering his eyes. If he were to remove those glasses one could see the gentleness that has settled there.
As he cooks himself a quick meal, the smell of the meat cooking flashes him back to another time, another place, long ago and far away. The pig roasting on a spit the crowd of underfed boys and Him, Ralph hates to think of that horrible nickname and that he was once stupid and young. He can’t believe that he doesn’t even know his name…Piggy. That is the only name he had. How cruel we were, he thinks, how idiotic. Could we not see that Piggy would have saved us with that bright mind? Piggy…Ralph hurriedly snatches the singed meat out of the pan and moves into his study to cram himself in front of yet another typewriter. But this is Ralph’s own space, his first apartment after living in the “Facility” as he liked to think of it. After being rescued from the island all the “Found Boys” were placed in a rehabilitation center and housed like animals until they could be reunited with families or deemed fit or unfit to enter the New World. That’s what it was called, the New World, rebuilt after the war into a world without borders.
Ralph had been the first of the boys to be released, he had thought that his father would come for him, but he found out later his father and his entire ship’s complement had been lost during the war. So, he had started his life new, fresh, and decided that he would write. He held on to every scrap of humanity he could and made it through college and got his job with a newspaper. He started with the classifieds and worked his way up, and now he was the go-to-guy for articles concerning the protests that were coming ever more frequently. He could empathize with these freedom fighters, but he had been through enough violence during his time on the island. He decided a while ago that he would never again be a party to violence. “We were just a pack of kids,” he mutters as he settles in to work. Not all of the boys had been as lucky as he was, many of them never left the “Facility.” Ralph went to visit them infrequently; it was just too hard to see those boys without seeing the one face he was looking for, Piggy.
The other boys would never admit it, but it was because of Piggy that they had all made it through as long as they did. He had been the voice of reason during all that madness. And yet, there was no one Ralph could tell his story to, no one had known his real name, so even if his family had made it through the war there was no way to find them. Ralph had made it his life’s work to tell the real story of Piggy, the brave and true, who had stood for all that was right on that godforsaken island. He poured the wisdom of Piggy onto the page in a manifesto that would hopefully find its way to the Governors. They could use a bit of Piggy’s insight. They thought that ruling with might and fervor was enough, even Ralph could understand this was not the best course of action. Jack had tried that, and where had it gotten him? He was locked in a solitary cell after trying to win control of the “Facility.” He thought he could regain power and with the help of his lieutenant, Roger, take over the world. In Ralph’s thinking, even if the “Found Boys” managed to escape, no one would listen to the savage rabble. Surely the world at large wasn’t that idiotic.
Democracy, free will, rights, and community were the ideas sprouting from the words flowing out of Ralph’s hands. Piggy would have wanted those things; he would have fought for them. This society was probably headed for disaster if someone didn’t make a change soon. There didn’t need to be so many laws, everything had a law. People of this ethnicity must live here, and work these jobs. People above a certain age must move into “Homes,” a similar construct to that of the “Facility.” Unwanted, useless citizens were crammed into buildings little better than warehouses.
Certain groups had begun to gather the force to start fighting the Governors, so that life could be free for all. Those rights that the old leaders had striven for, the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, had been long forgotten, and left to rot on shelves that none but the politically elite could even know existed. In his work as a reporter Ralph had come into contact with a man born into the elite but who wanted some semblance of a democracy instead of this semi-fascist-cum-communist whatever it was that was in power now. This man had risked his life to obtain for Ralph a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Fundamental Laws of England so the formulation of a new regime could be built on the back of the old.
That had been Piggy’s idea back on the island; he had wanted a society based on the one they had been born in. But his ideas had been ignored because they were unpopular. The boys had just wanted to play at being savages and hunt all day, so they did. And in the process burned all the vegetation off he island twice and they had ended up with three dead boys. They had told no one about the first little boy to go missing, only of Simon and Piggy. Ralph was guilty in both of their deaths, if he had just been stronger, if Jack hadn’t…But none of those thought could bring either of them back. So Ralph turned once again to the typewriter and continued to let the ideas flow. “No one person should have absolute power over another. We are all accountable for our own actions and for helping others. We must all share in the responsibilities of guiding and protecting the children of the earth, so that we may prevent a future world holocaust.” With these final words Ralph tugged the paper free. He gathered all the pages and placed them into the binder. It was time to take this to the Governors and the people. Changes must be made, and with Piggy’s wisdom, they could be made, Ralph was sure.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Wow! Not World of Warcraft!
Awe is the codeword, this post has nothing to do with a game, unless life is a game. I have no reason for not blogging except that I have been kind of lazy and settling in to my new life here at Pacific University. Honestly most of my inspiration went into another midnight poem regurgitation, so I have very little left for anything else ant the moment. I just thought I would add some words onto the internet, have fun ya'll.
Drink lots of water
Try not to eat too much salt
Eat your fruits and vegetable
Remember to smile and laugh!
Drink lots of water
Try not to eat too much salt
Eat your fruits and vegetable
Remember to smile and laugh!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Ack, School!
Yea, duh. I am going to college, it is work, but oh man. I have so much reading to do. Plus I don't actually have most of my books yet. Hopefully they will be here on Monday, I have hope. We are reading Lord of The Flies, 1984, A Clockwork Orange, Night, and Slaughterhouse-Five in my English literature class titles "Man's Inhumanity to Man." We may also be watching V for Vendetta and reading the graphic novel. The textbook for my Introduction to Psychology class is HUGE and we are reading alot of it, and I still don't have it. I have my Spanish textbook already, it's the same one I used at PCC, whew. I haven't even seen the textbook for my World Music class, but I understand that it is ginormous. In Expository Writing we are reading the (sh)novel How Like an Angel. Wow that is alot of books, plus I went on the website of the bookstore, which is run by Barnes and Noble, and found that if I bought them all new it would cost $488! Oh...My...God... I think I am going to faint. Luckily we have found many of these books used or at an amazingly less expensive price. Still, I don't understand why they make textbooks so damn expensive. It isn't like college students have any money.
Although beyond that things are going well. I really get along with my roommate well, and like my professors. The snow today was crazy, but I still had fun. I spent most of the day in the University Center building studying with a girl who is in one of my classes and friends with my roommate. We took some pictures in the snow. I am too lazy to upload them at the moment, so, you will just have to wait on the whim of fate to see them.
In the morning I am planning on walking down to the bus stop and riding in to Portland to church. I have to leave about 8am or earlier to get there about the same time I normally would. Although, this is really only a half an hour later than I would leave if I were at home, so I don't think it is a very big deal. I am excited though. The youth group is doing a fundraiser for the Oregon Food Bank and is doing a pancake feed, a yearly tradition. Yum, I sure do love pancakes.
I am also looking forward to seeing my church family. That is really how I see it. Some of the people at my church have known be since before I was born. I really love all of them and I hope all my favorites are there. Not that I have favorites of course, I love everyone. My parents are bringing my sister in to church, I think and bringing a box of stuff I left at home, or figured out i needed since I left, including some of the novels. I hope they decide to drive me home. I am so not looking forward to dragging my stuff around on the bus all afternoon.
Anyway, I am going back to the grind, although I love this part. I am spiffing up my calender and my writing journal with some pictures from home. Love ya loads!
Although beyond that things are going well. I really get along with my roommate well, and like my professors. The snow today was crazy, but I still had fun. I spent most of the day in the University Center building studying with a girl who is in one of my classes and friends with my roommate. We took some pictures in the snow. I am too lazy to upload them at the moment, so, you will just have to wait on the whim of fate to see them.
In the morning I am planning on walking down to the bus stop and riding in to Portland to church. I have to leave about 8am or earlier to get there about the same time I normally would. Although, this is really only a half an hour later than I would leave if I were at home, so I don't think it is a very big deal. I am excited though. The youth group is doing a fundraiser for the Oregon Food Bank and is doing a pancake feed, a yearly tradition. Yum, I sure do love pancakes.
I am also looking forward to seeing my church family. That is really how I see it. Some of the people at my church have known be since before I was born. I really love all of them and I hope all my favorites are there. Not that I have favorites of course, I love everyone. My parents are bringing my sister in to church, I think and bringing a box of stuff I left at home, or figured out i needed since I left, including some of the novels. I hope they decide to drive me home. I am so not looking forward to dragging my stuff around on the bus all afternoon.
Anyway, I am going back to the grind, although I love this part. I am spiffing up my calender and my writing journal with some pictures from home. Love ya loads!
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