Just a quick update... I'm taking a break from writing a speech. I go tomorrow, I hate public speaking...
I passed the GRE... that is, I got a high enough score on my verbal that I won't have to retake it, it should be a good enough score to get me in to grad school SOMEWHERE.
Where?, you ask. Hell if I know.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
GRE madness
Okay, so I am locked out of my apartment right now. It was a rushed morning, so now I'm stuck in the computer lab ABSOLUTELY STARVING to death and have nothing to do... so I thought I'd blog. Not that there's much to talk about. The first issue of the newspaper came out today and I think it looks horrendous. I did my best... but I am not a graphic designer. I'm not fit to shine the shoes of a graphic designer... I'm not exaggerating on how bad I really am. Someone, please take that miserable job away from me.
I take the GRE on Saturday... and I am regretting this whole "take it early and get it over with" attitude I had this summer which led me to sign up for the test in FREAKING Sept... when I don't have to have my scores until January at the latest. I'm stupid. So stupid that I'm sure I will FAIL this test and be forced to pay another $140 for ETS to tell me how dumb I am and how much I do not deserve to go to grad school. Though that is all I can think about really, going to grad school... and maybe even moving to Denver to do it.
So I'm a little cranky. I blame the starvation thing. I really had my heart on the leftovers in the fridge. I made these bitchin' cheese and spinach enchiladas last night. It was the first time I'd ever made them and they were fantastic... the recipe, not necessarily my culinary skills. Who am I kidding?... men should be lining up for a chance to date me and eat my cooking. I'm that great.
So now, I'm going to rant a little bit more about the totalitarian system that is standardized testing in America. I am not a standardized person. I believe I'm pretty competent with the English language... but I cannot be expected to know the meaning of jocund or pulchritude or circumlocutory... which, as it happens, I do now. My entire academic career has been centered around learning to write for a 7th grade reading level - its what journalists do. Get the message across in a the simplest way possible. If something is beautiful... I would never say it had pulchritude, and if a person is beating around the bush, I wouldn't call it circumlocutory. Those words are stupid... STUPID. And I hate that I have spent countless hours studying useless words so I can get a high score on a STANDARDIZED test... the root of all that is evil in this world.
I'm going to study some more though, because as much as I want to blow all of this off, I really want to keep studying communication... if that means I have to turn myself into an awesome standardized test taker, then well, just call me STANDARD, devoid of any creativity and uniqueness... run-of-the-mill, the same as everyone else.. I'm making these definitions up, which by the way... has its OWN FREAKING vocab word... Neologism.
I'm sick, and a sell-out. Sorry this post has been a little frantic, but I'm riding high on caffeine and ranting usually makes me feel better.
I take the GRE on Saturday... and I am regretting this whole "take it early and get it over with" attitude I had this summer which led me to sign up for the test in FREAKING Sept... when I don't have to have my scores until January at the latest. I'm stupid. So stupid that I'm sure I will FAIL this test and be forced to pay another $140 for ETS to tell me how dumb I am and how much I do not deserve to go to grad school. Though that is all I can think about really, going to grad school... and maybe even moving to Denver to do it.
So I'm a little cranky. I blame the starvation thing. I really had my heart on the leftovers in the fridge. I made these bitchin' cheese and spinach enchiladas last night. It was the first time I'd ever made them and they were fantastic... the recipe, not necessarily my culinary skills. Who am I kidding?... men should be lining up for a chance to date me and eat my cooking. I'm that great.
So now, I'm going to rant a little bit more about the totalitarian system that is standardized testing in America. I am not a standardized person. I believe I'm pretty competent with the English language... but I cannot be expected to know the meaning of jocund or pulchritude or circumlocutory... which, as it happens, I do now. My entire academic career has been centered around learning to write for a 7th grade reading level - its what journalists do. Get the message across in a the simplest way possible. If something is beautiful... I would never say it had pulchritude, and if a person is beating around the bush, I wouldn't call it circumlocutory. Those words are stupid... STUPID. And I hate that I have spent countless hours studying useless words so I can get a high score on a STANDARDIZED test... the root of all that is evil in this world.
I'm going to study some more though, because as much as I want to blow all of this off, I really want to keep studying communication... if that means I have to turn myself into an awesome standardized test taker, then well, just call me STANDARD, devoid of any creativity and uniqueness... run-of-the-mill, the same as everyone else.. I'm making these definitions up, which by the way... has its OWN FREAKING vocab word... Neologism.
I'm sick, and a sell-out. Sorry this post has been a little frantic, but I'm riding high on caffeine and ranting usually makes me feel better.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Songs that say goodbye
Lately I've been dealing a lot with loss. We lost my grandma in early August. Her funeral was August 6, the exact date her husband, my Pop, died seven years before.It's also the date I was baptized when I was nine. I don't know why that means so much to me, it just all seems like it fits together somehow. When Pop left us, I felt at peace about it. I just kind of mulled through it. His body just went out on him, and I was okay with that. And we still had Grandma, with her dog and huge, ancient farmhouse and property we used to explore. When she died it felt like my entire childhood was gone, too. I ache for it, still. She was absolutely, 100 percent ready to leave this world, but I wasn't ready to let go of mine with her in it.
I did cry a lot at the funeral, but I think it was mostly for my family. We were all a little bit wrecked, and I was crying a lot in response to their emotion. I didn't really feel the sorrow for myself. But the next Sunday I was back at church, I completely lost it, in the middle of worship. The song was "Blessed Be Your Name" - which was a song that meant a lot to me when my cousin Ben died freshman year - and I lost control of myself. They were full-blown sobs. My parents just held me for awhile, and I know I made my mom cry. And she's a lot of the reason I think its been so hard... my mom is an orphan now. Both of her parents are gone.
But I had a ton of distraction, and the grief got swallowed up for a month while I went to Denver and moved back to school. Not a lot of my friends at school knew it had happened so it wasn't brought up. Then, last Tuesday, September 6, the first song of our chapel session was "Amazing Grace." It played at her funeral, and like a revelation, I realized how long she'd been gone. I sat down in the dark auditorium and sobbed, uncontrollably. I was so loud, and I couldn't help it. Breathing became a secondary action. I can't imagine what the people around me were thinking... but Sarah sat next to me and when I could breathe again, I told her what made me react.
Death sucks. Cruel, needless death is even worse. And on Sept. 11, you can think of almost nothing else. I tried to stay away from the news at first. But tonight in my film studies class we watched United 93. I never wanted to watch this movie, because I know how I react to things like this. My head hurt so bad by the end of it, I was trying so hard not to cry out loud. But I'm not sorry that I watched it. Because you cannot hide from the stuff that sucks, even when it is six years old, especially because it feels as fresh as if it had occurred yesterday.
My great-uncle died on Thursday, my mamaw's brother. My great-aunt, my grandma's youngest sister who is really close to our family because she doesn't have any immediate relatives, is dying of pancreatic cancer, doctors say she has mere months to live. And it sucks. I feel like everyone in my family who is over 60 is going to leave me. But I don't have to feel like this, this heavy, uncontrollable feeling crushing my lungs. Jesus is here. In good and bad, to deal with this crap right along with me. He's here to bear the burdens so I don't have to be sad forever. He beat all of this... the sickness and the death and the sorrow and the hatred and the violence, all things that lead to loss and misery.
It's not un-Christian to be sad. But Jesus is about hope, and I have hope that God's going to bring the good into my life, right alongside the bad. Its why I can smile though there are tears welling up in my eyes. Hope.
I did cry a lot at the funeral, but I think it was mostly for my family. We were all a little bit wrecked, and I was crying a lot in response to their emotion. I didn't really feel the sorrow for myself. But the next Sunday I was back at church, I completely lost it, in the middle of worship. The song was "Blessed Be Your Name" - which was a song that meant a lot to me when my cousin Ben died freshman year - and I lost control of myself. They were full-blown sobs. My parents just held me for awhile, and I know I made my mom cry. And she's a lot of the reason I think its been so hard... my mom is an orphan now. Both of her parents are gone.
But I had a ton of distraction, and the grief got swallowed up for a month while I went to Denver and moved back to school. Not a lot of my friends at school knew it had happened so it wasn't brought up. Then, last Tuesday, September 6, the first song of our chapel session was "Amazing Grace." It played at her funeral, and like a revelation, I realized how long she'd been gone. I sat down in the dark auditorium and sobbed, uncontrollably. I was so loud, and I couldn't help it. Breathing became a secondary action. I can't imagine what the people around me were thinking... but Sarah sat next to me and when I could breathe again, I told her what made me react.
Death sucks. Cruel, needless death is even worse. And on Sept. 11, you can think of almost nothing else. I tried to stay away from the news at first. But tonight in my film studies class we watched United 93. I never wanted to watch this movie, because I know how I react to things like this. My head hurt so bad by the end of it, I was trying so hard not to cry out loud. But I'm not sorry that I watched it. Because you cannot hide from the stuff that sucks, even when it is six years old, especially because it feels as fresh as if it had occurred yesterday.
My great-uncle died on Thursday, my mamaw's brother. My great-aunt, my grandma's youngest sister who is really close to our family because she doesn't have any immediate relatives, is dying of pancreatic cancer, doctors say she has mere months to live. And it sucks. I feel like everyone in my family who is over 60 is going to leave me. But I don't have to feel like this, this heavy, uncontrollable feeling crushing my lungs. Jesus is here. In good and bad, to deal with this crap right along with me. He's here to bear the burdens so I don't have to be sad forever. He beat all of this... the sickness and the death and the sorrow and the hatred and the violence, all things that lead to loss and misery.
It's not un-Christian to be sad. But Jesus is about hope, and I have hope that God's going to bring the good into my life, right alongside the bad. Its why I can smile though there are tears welling up in my eyes. Hope.
These words are heavy on my mind
like songs that say goodbye
like songs that say goodbye - Schuyler Fisk
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Let's pack our things and head out west...
If you had no obligations, no one tying you down, where would you go and what would you do? Me,I'd move to Colorado and study journalism and mass communication, which incidentally has become my new dream. Why Colorado, you ask? Oh, there are plenty of reasons that I could write about here, but I think I'll just illustrate them for you...let the pictures explain for me.
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