Thanksgiving Wrap Up

I just got back to school after being home for the holiday, and I already want to be home again. The amount of work I have to accomplish between now and then, however, is terrifying. I’m so happy that in exactly 3 weeks I will be back home in Florida in the sunshine and warmth surrounded by my family. And, to make it all better, I’m taking Clarkus home for the Christmas holidays again! Kitty on a plane take two. He’s already ready to go.

While I was home, I got to do some of my favorite things. My brothers and I had pizza at my favorite local pizza place. We’ve been going there for ages, and it is so delicious. Afterwards, we caught some great high school football. Go Raiders!

 

 

My mom and I set up our Snow Village. I love this part of Christmas decorating. I keep telling my parents, one day I’m going to move to Snow Village. It always seems ao idyllic in it’s little porcelain perfection.

I also found some old pictures of Snowball. I didn’t realize just how sick he looked in those last few pictures of him that I had until I saw these. This is how I remember him – all snuggled up for a nap in the sun.

 We also decorated our Christmas tree and put up lights outside, and had breakfast at another of our local staples. All in all, it was a great holiday. I’m already counting down the days until I can go home again. I can’t believe it had been a year since the last time I made it down there. Too long. Way too long.

 

Unfortunately they’re gone.

I just ate the last of my Easter candy as I sit here on the couch watching Harry Potter Weekend on ABC Family. Normally, I would feel bad about myself just wasting my days sitting on the couch doing nothing, but this is my nothing week – the week immediately following the end of Spring classes. Every year, I give myself the first week of summer to do nothing, to just sit on the couch and watch hours of mindless tv (or, in this year’s case, Grey’s Anatomy and Harry Potter). After this week, I start on my summer projects. I’ve got quite the list this summer:

1. finish the scarf I started crocheting last summer

2. learn to read French

3. review my Latin skills

4. complete PhD applications (or as much of them as I realistically can)

5. revise 3 papers for publication, edit my undergraduate thesis for presentation, and write the paper I’ve been mulling over since Christmas

Anyway, I digress from my original point of departure: Easter candy. I never realized how much I liked Easter candy until my endless supply of it was gone. I’m usually not a major candy person. I don’t like intense sweets. My friends used to (eh, whom am I kidding, still do) make fun of me all the time when we go out for ice cream. I’m always the one asking for the raspberry sorbet or the mango sherbet. I’ve been told these do not qualify as “real ice cream.” But, once again, I digress. What I intended to say about 150 words ago is that I kind of love jelly beans – not the normal jelly beans, though, not the ones that are huge and taste like nothing but freeze-dried sugar. I love the fancy jellybeans – the ones that have flavors – like Starburst brand or Jelly Belly. Oh, man, do I love them.

The problem, however, is that unless it’s Easter time, these fancy jelly beans are either a) impossible to find or b) $96 a box. I guess I’ll just have to wait until next year. Maybe for graduation, I’ll just get a huge tub of fancy jelly beans. That’d be nice.

Wesley the Owl

 

I know I promised a post about my Orlando revelations; however, as I sat down to write it, I realized I’m not quite ready to put my thoughts into words just yet. In place of those revelations, I will give you my thoughts on a book I just finished reading. It’s called Wesley the Owl, and one of my very good new, New Jersey friends gave it to me for Christmas. I have a thing for owls; they’re kind of my thing. And, Wesley’s story (as told by his surrogate mother, Stacey O’Brien) was an amazing read. Aside from the myriad of facts about owls I learned, some of Stacey’s words and own personal experiences truly hit home for me. I thought I’d share my top three:

1. “So that was the key. You had to marry someone just as weird as you were. Hmm.” (132)

Stacey’s exploits into love and friendship remind me of my own. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve felt that friends and people I love simply do not understand my lifestyle and my dedication to academics. I’ve been the weird book girl, the quiet one, the one who stays in the library until they kick me out rather than going out to the clubs and bars, and the one “avoiding real life” in graduate school. Needless to say, it’s taken a toll on some of my relationships, yet, like Stacey, it makes me appreciate those who can (or at least want and try) to understand me.

2. “Even though I’d been trained to exclude thoughts about spirits and unquantifiable, immeasurable feelings that could taint scientific conclusions, Wesley’s presence in my life influenced my thinking. Now I see that to exclude a certain kind of idea is itself  creating a bias. What if the truth screams as loudly as a male barn owl crying for a mate, and we miss it because we have not allowed ourselves to listen to the channel it’s on – or we’ve tuned it out?” (177)

Although I am by no means a scientist like Stacey, I still struggle with a fear that I am constantly misreading the signs in my life. I believe that life presents us with little (or big) tools, or signs, that help us uncover our reason for being alive, our purpose. I believe the signs will continue to come for as long as we need them until we can decode them, but I still worry that I will never get it right, that I will spend my life chasing signs down the wrong roads, that I will misread, misunderstand. I’ve struggled a lot lately with feeling like I am misreading my own feelings. I’ve felt betrayed and befuddled by them more than usual, and it’s been tough on my spirit to keep going even when I feel like I’m clawing my way through a forest only to end up back where I began. Sometimes I wish I could sneak a peek at the picture the puzzle of my life is forming, just so I can know that I am headed in the right direction, just so that I know the things I want and need will be fulfilled, just so I can understand it all.

3. Guilt is just anger turned inward – anger at our helplessness in being unable to change the inevitable. But we are not gods…. My sister and I made a vow when I was eight years old. We would live our lives not by staying in the shallow, safer waters, but by wading as deep into the river of life as possible, no matter how dangerous the current. We knew that we had only one chance at this life and we decided to try to make every moment matter.” (223)

Again, Stacey seems to put my very thoughts into words. It’s taken me way past the age of eight to commit to a life in the deepest of life’s waters, but I agree that this is the only way to make life worthwhile. If we won’t go after what we want with full force, chase happiness with all we have, why bother doing anything?

So, if you are looking for a delightful memoir or are new to enjoying non-fiction, I suggest you check out Wesley the Owl. Wesley’s story and Stacey’s reflections spoke to me. I hope they speak to you as well.

 

 

Snowfall and Mental Health.

We got our first snowfall yesterday! I couldn’t believe it: snow for Halloween. Craziness, but the whole town looks really pretty now. It makes me want to sing Christmas carols all day despite my vehement anti-Christmas-before-Thanksgiving stance.

My neighbor and I trekked to the grocery store this morning.

I’ve decided that I kind of hate the weekends now. During the week I have places to be, things to do, thoughts to keep my head on straight. Over the weekends, I tend to fall into bad places. I get all twisted up in my head. Maybe I should blame it on cabin fever. Without a car, I really don’t have any means of getting around (on the weekends or any day for that matter). I think I might start going to the library and sitting around reading just to give myself something to do and a place to be. I’m kind of sick of feeling lonely and lazy on the weekends. My neighbor and I usually go downtown for some breakfast, some coffee, and some grocery shopping. It’s great. I really enjoy myself every time, but as soon as we get back, I’m always staring down a long weekend with very little on my to-do list.

Distractions have been very important for me lately. I’ve needed to get my mind off things, to move forward and stop looking back. So, on that note, I’ve started doing some reading “for fun” – aka I’ve been looking up interesting articles in the MLA International Bibliography database, reading them, and then looking up their authors. I’ve begun to craft a list of schools I want to apply to for my PhD study. This strategy has led me to some crazy schools in some wild places that I never would have considered, much less put on my list, before, but I’m excited.

My question/assignment for you all is to help me in this search. I start my application process this summer, and I need all the help I can wrangle up. Know any schools with great English Departments or professors with a love of all things medieval? Let me know. Have a school you love or your family loves or you think is kinda cool for whatever reason? Let me know.

My last foray into the world of graduate school applications was quite the wild ride. Stressful. Terrifying, but in the end successful. Let’s hope this time is the same (although I could do with a little less stress, a little less terror, and a little more success overall).

When panic meets perfection.

I spent the last few days visiting my soon-to-be home in New Jersey.  The trip was a whirlwind of emotion and certainly opened my eyes to just how sheltered a life I have lived these past several years.  At first arrival, culture shock induced panic attacks, minor but still enough to make me question what I had gotten myself into.  I’m not sure what I had been expecting, but my initial reaction was not one I had anticipated.  Through the panic, however, I was able to understand a few things.

There it is, all of it.

1. New Jersey is nothing like Florida.  From the crazy, crowded, cramped streets to the teeny, tiny towns, New Jersey is a whirlwind of interesting new adventures.  There were times I felt like the world was being folded upon itself while making a turn onto a road that had to be at an 85 degree angle to the one I was on, houses that looked like mansions beside tiny homes built in the 1800′s, and a village with one major street.

2. Housing in New Jersey is nothing like housing in Florida.  My mom had planned to hunt for apartments on Friday and Saturday.  We assumed we’d be able to drive through town, talk to some leasing agents, and see some models.  We were wrong.  We walked all over town, but found ourselves standing on numerous street corners calling number after number from signs in front of clusters of apartments praying that someone would call us back soon.  We saw some apartments shaped like boxes and about the size of the average walk-in closet that were renting for $900 and up.  We also learned that a town founded in the 1600′s means apartments and apartment buildings built 50 years ago are considered new construction.

3. I love everything about my new home.  From the crazy, crowded, cramped streets to the teeny, tiny towns, I am 100% in love with South Orange, NJ.  I can see myself studying at the town’s one and only Starbucks and visiting the little bakery next door for a mid-afternoon snack.  I can see myself shopping at the market enjoying the gorgeous arched wooden shelves and fantastic selection of fresh produce.  I know I will never be able to turn down a veggie burger at the Village Diner or a slice of Pirates’ Pizza.  I see myself spread out on a bench in the middle of the University Green studying for my Comps, visiting my professor’s house for Thanksgiving dinner if I can’t make it back to Florida, and gazing in awe at the beautiful tree in front of President’s Hall decorated for Christmas.

 

 

I know that I have found where I am supposed to be.  I know that I will be happy.  I know that things are working out just as they should.  From the fact that my advisor asserted I am doing the best things I could possibly be doing to achieve my goals and the complete geek-out session I had while visiting Walsh Library on campus to the fact that I know I am a small-town girl at heart, I can aver that life could not be better (unless I could somehow convince my friends, family, and boyfriend to move to New Jersey with me).