It being precisely five weeks until I go home, I am taking this moment to compose a short list of places I just can't wait to go.
1) The dojo. Uptown, downtown, class, or workout, I can't wait to get back to being the eternally-abused brown belt.
2) The barn. I would be happy to reek of horses, leather cleaner, and hay-dust.
3) Bodo's.
4) The downtown mall -- I hear it's having a facelift?
5) The nest.
6) My huge, low, down-comforter-dominated bed at my parents' house.
7) Proffit Road.
8) The Lawn-proper, The Corner, steps of the Rotunda, Old Cabell, Harrison-Small, and of course ALDERMAN.
9) Greenberry's.
10) Daedalus Books.
listening to: ML's mix (rap side)
reading: notes for Souveraineté et Mondialisation
The history major transitions out of university and attempts to navigate the working world.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
dive in like honeybees
I have so much to say, and it feels like so little time left to say it.
Maybe I never mentioned that I could never stop writing, not even for a brief hiatus, when I turned my back on the suggestion of being an English major and fell into the challenge of learning about something new. I know what you're thinking, that I could have sunk so deeply into literature, poetry courses, an interdisciplinary creative writing honors program, and come through these long four years with a portfolio worth showing.
I wonder if that would have been a better use of my time, as I tap my fingers on the dirty table and wonder how I am supposed to write a historical thesis abstract in the the next twenty-three days.
It's been more than four months since I've sat down to write an academic paper, the notes and sources and reference books arranged around my cross-legged form in a perfect semi-circle, coffee cups perched on the table and ignored, a pen twisted in my hair to keep it out of the way as I frown in concentration, my fingers flying to keep up with the corseted, gasping, tightly-laced flow of facts and images. I haven't recently had the pleasure and the tension of a deadline ticking down, the exquisitely formatted margins bottlenecking my text, three tabs on citation formats open in the background.
When I write papers, I write them straight through, churning out a page every fifteen minutes with footnotes included, racing through a detailed outline, until finally I reach the end. Then I sit back, reread, edit, scowl and change things, delete and add, move paragraphs around, polish the piece.
That love/hate relationship with the tightly bound freedom of writing papers is, at the end of the day, why I want to write a thesis so badly. Maybe sometimes I have been forgetting that desire.
Reading: my notebook
Listening to: What Sarah Said // Death Cab for Cutie
Maybe I never mentioned that I could never stop writing, not even for a brief hiatus, when I turned my back on the suggestion of being an English major and fell into the challenge of learning about something new. I know what you're thinking, that I could have sunk so deeply into literature, poetry courses, an interdisciplinary creative writing honors program, and come through these long four years with a portfolio worth showing.
I wonder if that would have been a better use of my time, as I tap my fingers on the dirty table and wonder how I am supposed to write a historical thesis abstract in the the next twenty-three days.
It's been more than four months since I've sat down to write an academic paper, the notes and sources and reference books arranged around my cross-legged form in a perfect semi-circle, coffee cups perched on the table and ignored, a pen twisted in my hair to keep it out of the way as I frown in concentration, my fingers flying to keep up with the corseted, gasping, tightly-laced flow of facts and images. I haven't recently had the pleasure and the tension of a deadline ticking down, the exquisitely formatted margins bottlenecking my text, three tabs on citation formats open in the background.
When I write papers, I write them straight through, churning out a page every fifteen minutes with footnotes included, racing through a detailed outline, until finally I reach the end. Then I sit back, reread, edit, scowl and change things, delete and add, move paragraphs around, polish the piece.
That love/hate relationship with the tightly bound freedom of writing papers is, at the end of the day, why I want to write a thesis so badly. Maybe sometimes I have been forgetting that desire.
Reading: my notebook
Listening to: What Sarah Said // Death Cab for Cutie
Thursday, April 2, 2009
listmaking early on a Thursday morning.
In precisely two months I'll be journeying home.
Here are the things I can't wait to see:
-bagels
-correctly formed lines
-stores that are open between noon and 2pm
-trees, grass, and similarly green things
-mountains
-American coffee
-ponies
-you
Here are the things I could be fine with never seeing again:
-American cars
-news from the conservative right
-my class schedule for fall 2009
-traffic on 29-North
-prices in dollars
-most fast food restaurants
Here are the things I can't wait to see:
-bagels
-correctly formed lines
-stores that are open between noon and 2pm
-trees, grass, and similarly green things
-mountains
-American coffee
-ponies
-you
Here are the things I could be fine with never seeing again:
-American cars
-news from the conservative right
-my class schedule for fall 2009
-traffic on 29-North
-prices in dollars
-most fast food restaurants
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