I wish I were asleep

I need to work on my time management skills. For instance, I probably should have spent two hours working hard on this essay and THEN "checked facebook real quick" before heading to bed, as opposed to "checking facebook real quick" for two hours, then working on this essay half-brainedly as I fall asleep.

Whatever.

I decided to write my essay on how hard it is for me to write about myself. That is so lame. I'm really disappointed in myself. I'm putting lots of conversation in it. I hope that's okay. I don't remember much more than that. That's why it's hard to write these things. Because I have no memory. I wonder if I can take something for that?

Anyway, I think I just came here to write for a minute as a way to unwind before I shut my laptop off and go to sleep. 5 hours, if I fall asleep right now. (Do you do that? Count the hours you'll get before you go to sleep? It's become such a habit for me that I feel uneasy unless I count.) Which I won't fall asleep right now, because I still have to brush my teeth. And stay awake as a helpless victim to my wandering mind which usually insists on thinking about random stuff for a while instead of letting me rest. Yay. 

I have a new favorite little kid. Two year old boys are the cutest, sweetiest, funniest, best, most funnest and best ever. I had to go to a meeting after church tonight, and he started crying as I was walking away. His mom let me take him with me. He just sat in my lap all snuggly-cozy for the entire meeting. It made my heart big. I offered to keep him forever, and his dad said that sounded like a good deal to him, but his mom couldn't reconcile the logistics or something, so I had to give him back. Oh well. One day...

I was going to have a second helping of crunch-berry cereal earlier, but I turned my back to put the cereal away after I poured my second helping and O'Malley the Irish Wolfhound started slurping it up. I guess I didn't need the calories anyway. Thanks, O'Malley. 

Good night.

They Say I Say Essay

The topic and outline for my three to five page narrative essay are due tomorrow.
I've had two weeks to come up with a topic.
Now I have fifteen hours.

It must address something "they" say, explain what "I say" in response, and illustrate my side with three to five narrative, descriptive illustrations.

Example: "they say" fishing is boring. "I say" fishing is awesome. "Last March, I went fly fishing with my grizzly great uncle, and..."

Two weeks, and I haven't got a topic.
Twenty-three years of life experience, and I haven't got a topic.
It's like when someone says, "name a song!" and your mind freezes, and you suddenly can't remember a single title out of the thousands of songs you know.

I am a good writer. I know it. Not an amazing writer, but... I can write just fine. I just re-read some of my poetry and short stories, and they're good. But they are good because I had a sharp image in my mind that I wanted to convey. I can't start writing this essay until I get a good mental image, a direction. Something worth saying.

I have a list of five potential topics, but I don't love any of them. I don't even like most of them. I don't feel like I can write something worth reading unless I believe in it.

I was hoping blogging about it might spark some thoughts somehow. So far, nothing doing.

Another problem, besides for fishing for a topic in the vast sea of my entire life's history, is that I have practically no memory. How can I write three to five very descriptive, "zoomed in," concrete illustrations/stories with such a small memory bank to go on? I asked my sisters to help me brainstorm.
"What's your best memory?" they asked.
"I don't have one."
"That's just SAD."

I mean... I have some good memories. But I can't pick a best one. And I don't know how I'm ever going to remember at least three with enough details to make a good essay of them that addresses whatever it is "they say," whoever they are.

This is not helping.
**update** I wonder if the professor would find it really obnoxious if I wrote about how hard it is for me to write about myself?

confession

I need to get this off my chest. Don't tell anyone I told you:

I'm going to school for the fun of it.
I don't have a plan.
At all.

curly hair, car loans, and camping. sort of.

Hey.

So, this is how long my hair is now. 

 And it doesn't really look that long, but then I straighten it, and it's like WHOA! I DO have hair after all! YAY! (I know, I know, I promised myself no more heat-styling. But really, did any of us believe that? I promise, that's the first time I've actually straightened it for real.)

 Also, way to begin my blog post looking like a crazy person, right? Whatever. Everybody already knows I'm crazy, so it's not like it's hurting anything.

So, school is fun. I'm supposed to be hypothetically buying a car right now, to get a loan and calculate interest and stuff. I'll do it after I finish this. I wish I were actually buying a car. This whole not-having-a-car thing is weird. When I'm working, I take their minivan to school. Some days when I'm not working, I can drive mom's minivan. Some days I'm minivan-less, but it just so happens that I have this great, generous friend who gives me a ride to school on those days. Which is pretty neat, and I'm super grateful, but I feel bad for having to ask all the time.

Oh, right, school. Philosophy is fun. We've been all about the foundations of Western philosophy in Ancient Greece so far, but we're moving on after midterms.

Math is super easy, which is ... miraculous. The prof is wacky, and sometimes class is boring, but I'll take boring over miserable any day.

English is so great. I just love English. That's why I'm even at college, y'all. This professor is fantastic. I'm supposed to be starting a narrative descriptive essay this week, though, and I'm stuck. With 23 years of life experience,  I can't think of a good topic for an essay. How does that even work?

Physics is interesting and hard. The prof reminds me of what my brother, Nick, would be like if he were a teacher. So, I really do like the class, I'm just not making As. haha.

I don't even want to talk about the freshman Critical Inquiry class. -_-

And I finally got my membership card for the Wellness Center on campus. Just in time; I have a 5k this Saturday, and I have got to spend the week trying to get back in shape. I thought signing up for this series would spur me back into gear, and it did not. I'm blaming it on school and work. Anyway, the treadmills and I are fixin' to become best pals.

Y'all, I was so excited to go to bed before midnight last night. Like, giddy. I was grinning as I set my alarm clock for 9 AM.

Um... So... what else should I mention? (I have become terrible at this!) Oh! I get to help teach little kids at church again. That's fun. I love kids so much. I'm actually babysitting my little 3 year old buddy right now, but she's napping. :)

I really want to go camping. Someone needs to call me and be all like, "hey! let's go camping!" And I'll be like "YEAH! let's hit the wilderness with some sleeping bags and marshmallows!" (Actually, I'll probably be like "crap. I really wanna, but I'm working for the next 5 weekends.") But, yeah. I just have this nagging little ache for percolated coffee in the early morning, surrounded by cool mountain mist, and late night marshmallow roasting, and cozy sweats and sleeping bags. I'm torturing myself here.

So, I guess I'm going to go hypothetically get a car loan now.
:) me

blurt

I've been too busy living life to write about it lately. (Haha, just kidding. My Pinterest boards might tell you otherwise.)  Actually, I have been writing about life, just not here. It's like I've mentioned before - the less blogging I do, the more I write in my journal. And I really have been busy. Life is changing a lot.

I used to wish I could see into the future. Just a little bit. To know what sort of major things would happen to me. I thought maybe if I knew, I could anticipate and prepare, or at least wait more patiently for life to change. Things start changing though, and I freak out. I feel like life has this sneaky way of lulling you into a feeling that nothing will ever change, and then it jumps you with like four major life changes all at once. It's a little scary. And now I'm glad I can't see things coming, because I know in reality it would just give me more time to work myself into a sleepless frenzy of high blood pressure, anxiety attacks, and stress-induced acne.

I'm supposed to be writing a one page paper about a time I experienced a "cognitive lens shift." Instead, I'm writing a blog post. Maybe I could write about how I used to wish I could see into the future, and then I realized that would be awful. That was a change in perspective. That counts, right?

I'm losing my train of thought. I'm not sure if I ever had one. Oh, I remember why I started writing this now. There was a handful things I wanted to post on facebook, but decided that would look ridiculous, so I should just get them off my chest here. I think I'll do a bulleted list, so I don't have to freak out about getting my thoughts and paragraphs just right.

• I want to go to Sonic. I want the sun to shine, and the breeze to blow, and for my best friend to join me at Sonic, drinking slushies and eating tater tots. But that's not going to happen, and it's making me sad.
• I miss my friends. I'm making new friends, and they are great, but it's not the same as getting to always be around the people I've been closest to for years. 
• I feel lonely lately. I don't like feeling lonely. It's an empty, dark bluish grey kind of feeling. And not a pretty dark bluish grey.
• Along the same vein as missing my friends, I miss Laura and Nick. Nick is my little brother who became the big brother I always wanted. He's got so much wisdom and strength for one so young, and I miss his hugs and talks and encouragement. Laura and I didn't really get along last summer, but we were best friends this summer. Every time I've pulled into the driveway since she left earlier this week, I'm hit with sadness when I don't see her car. 
• My favorite TV show is starting back up this fall, but it's not as exciting since it won't be the same without Erin to watch it with me.
• Summer is over. School is in, and I feel like summer never happened. I was spoiled by the last 3 summers. Those were spent surrounded by close friends, doing lots of spontaneous summery things. This summer felt like one big, long summer-length transition/waiting period. It was nice, but it wasn't the same. And sometimes different is good, but kind of sad.
• Celebrate Freedom - the biggest, awesomest, all day Christian concert ever is happening today. I was there the last two years, and this year I'm not. And Switchfoot is headlining again! And I hate that I'm missing that.
• I'm 23. This is not where I thought I would be when I was 18 and the question "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" came up. (speaking of which, I never blogged about my birthday...)  In all honesty, I imagined I would be married. Silly me. Nobody's ever even asked me out. I'm majorly tired of being single. (see 3rd bullet) But that's a secret, because girls who love Jesus enough aren't supposed to be unhappy about being single, right?

Wow. That was depressing. Maybe this is why I haven't been blogging! I promise I'm not this way all the time. I keep telling my friends I've been a little bi-polar lately. I'll have this pity party, and then two hours later I'll be all like, "Wow! God is just so good, and He's working so many new things in my life, and I just KNOW this is going to be a fantastic year full of new places and people and experiences! I'm going to learn so much, and I really believe God is going to show himself to me in new, exciting ways! This is so great!"

Okay, truthfully, I've been leaning pretty hard into the negative side. The thing is, I really do believe all that great stuff.  Just not enough to always feel that way about it. Every now and then, I have flashes where I feel like I believe it- excited and happy and confident and hopeful. I believe God is doing great things in my life, but mostly I still feel anxious and lonely. How does that even work?

Now I need to write some bullets about the good things going on, just to balance this crazy out.

• I signed up for a series of 5ks this fall! The first out of five was this morning, and it was lovely. The trail wound through woods, across a pond, and up and down lots of hills. It was tough, but so so great.
• USCA rejected my application at first, but I had an amazing admissions counselor who talked me through the petition process, and then I was accepted. Also, I qualified for a goodly portion of financial aid, so... that all worked out really well.
• I had a random, temporary job for a week a little while back that helped me pay my first school bill.
• I made it through week one of classes at USCA! So far, so good. But I'm letting myself be anxious about how things will be in a few weeks when the real homework starts hitting. Philosophy and English are my favorites, I think. Physical science... not my thing. The teacher is great, but I had a ridiculously hard time with a lab project yesterday, which is SO not promising.
• Not only did I make it through week one of classes, I made it TO week one of classes. You know that whole not-having-a-car thing? Well, I'm not sure how it happened, but I made it to class. (This is still on my freak-out list, though.)
• I got a new job! I'm babysitting some kids and an irish wolfhound overnight about three times a week. Still gettin' the hang of it, but I think it's going to go really well.
• Despite my whiny cries about missing my friends, I really have had a good time getting to know my new friends. I'm grateful to have met some people to hang out and have fun with. And bake cookies for. haha

So, as you can see, God really is working things out in my life. I am so thankful.
And still so freaked out.

(and here's a picture of me and my awesome sister on my birthday. Since I never wrote about that.)