A series of Unfortunate Ramblings

I can't choose a good title until i have decided what i will write about i suppose. So that will wait for last.

So here is my blog....and there goes my inspiration....

OH, so today i wrote a special order free verse poem for my friend Jenn. She wanted one about her Dad's dog who died the other week. He treated that dog like a human. So i just asked her to tell me about it and then wrote. It turned out really well, and she cried when she read it. Part of me felt triumphant that i could evoke so much emotion through my writing. Perhaps creative writing was a decent choice for a major after all. :-D It was a great confidence provider for me to know that i posess enough skill (and not just talent) to be able to write a poem on the spot like that and have it turn out well enough to the untrained eye. *joy*

So, my friend Steve lives in Texas. They had snow like 2 weeks ago. I live in North Carolina/Virginia and we have been wearing maybe a hoodie to keep warm from the "cold winter weather". Wtf? Now, perhaps my frustration comes from growing up in Maine, where snow is a given and happens, without fail, every winter. Im completely okay with that as well, because the it's a dry cold, and therefore doesn't feel as horrible as the damp cold that seeps into your bones down here.

For the last 8 or so years that i have lived here, i have also taken note that winter doesnt start until oh, March or so. So when i saw the weather forecast saying it was supposed to snow like crazy in both these places, i balked, but i also packed my bags and made sure to be home before any of it was supposed to hit. But, what a tease! I went outside a few hours ago, around 4:30, and sure enough, tiny, salt-like flakes were slamming into things, spaced-out and far from one another. Promising. However, it stopped by the time i made it back to my house about an hour after that. Now if ever my life centered around irony-which i assure you it does- It began snowing less than 5 miles from my house- but not at my house.

Just now, upon looking out the window, i see that it has in fact started snowing. There seems to be a good couple inches on the ground. Well good grief. Now that i am getting what i want, though, i can only think of my plans to go over to Main street to the Lucky H to visit with friends and watch one of their friends bands play. Upon telling my grandmother of my plans, she felt a need to inform me that fights had broken out there recently, and on both occasions, someone had been thrown through the window. The second time occured before the first window even had a chance to be fixed. Does it make me a bad person to think to myself-- sounds like a fun place....those people dont sound like they'll be too stuck up to just chill. Granted, they got into a bar fight, but i mean, you cant take life too seriously if you allow yourself a good bar fight from time to time, am i right?

On another note, i hate Christmas. Just puttin that out there. Every time someone wishes me a Merry Christmas i want to start an argument about saying Happy Holidays instead, and every time someone says happy holidays i want to spit. I think this holiday probably has a major impact on the national debt, this and every other organized holiday. Its not that i never had a good one, ive had my share, but being as in tune to the effects of holidays on people stress levels as i am and was i quickly learned that holidays, especially Christmas, are more trouble than they're worth. If the government decides to take out all organized holidays (except July 4th-- i like that one) i will be right behind them. Of course, i will still gladly take the month long break from school....

Goals

I just got an idea off of a website for making a list of 101 things to be accomplished in 1001 days. I dont know that i can come up with that many goals! its certainly worth a shot. Criteria is as follows:
1. Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.
2. Stay focussed. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.
3. Welcome failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.
4. Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.
5. Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.

Realize that the list itself is an intermediate term goal. This means you should pace yourself carefully through this list. Work on things as they seem appropriate, but don’t lose sight of the overall goal of finishing the list.

Realize that such a list will be composed of challenging microgoals, short term goals, and medium term goals, and use that perspective appropriately. Different goals on your list may have different timeframes, different amounts of effort, and so forth. Don’t let the challenge of one goal make you think that they’re all unachievable.

Keep tabs on it. It’s easy to make a list like this and forget about it. Don’t. Keep it in mind and keep making updates to it marking your progress. It will make you realize that you really do accomplish things.

I dont even quite know where i would begin or what my goals would be! Time to start a new word doc on my desktop....i guess this will go along with my "Top things not to do" list....lol!

That lonely girl

When i first got a Youtube account, i was always lonely. It was after i moved south to VA. I didnt know anyone, i couldnt relate to anyone, and honestly i didnt like the people i was surrounded by. I wasn't accepted for who i was by hardly anyone, and became very depressed, so my screen name became Thatlonelygirl19.

Just now, i was reading my favorite blogger, Nikki Rice, and she coined a phrase that made me realize a major reason for my depression. She said something to the extent of "that lonely feeling you get from being in a new place." Its exactly what i was feeling when i sat down to write this blog, and after she helped me realize that was what it is, i started to try to describe it. Its like butterflies in your stomache, but maybe more like junebugs when they're buzzing, and you feel as if you've just forgotten something but you cant remember what it is and you know if you dont remember it soon, you're gonna have a problem, and its a lot like that feeling you get when you're about to share something personal with a big room full of people who probably dont care. (Very similar to reading your own poems at open mic night!) In my opinion, this is possibly the worst feeling in the world when you don't know what it is or why you have it, because youre not in front of a crowd, and you haven't forgotten anything, and you most certainly havent swallowed a cicada.

I realized my entire life has been lived around that very feeling. I grew up in a family where you did everything on eggshells and you learned not to ask for anything ever, because your mother was crazy and didnt want you, or want you to be happy. I never felt at home in my home. When we moved south, i was the wierd kid who spoke funny. I changed my image and style as rapidly as an electrocuted chameleon, and therefore made myself untouchable. I didnt belong to any group, and only knew how to push people away because that is what i had learned. Today i have no friends from high school that i speak with regularly. Soon, i decided i needed to create a persona that made my family and church accept me, because according to what they were promoting to me, i should be well liked by them, and i wasn't. So i convinced myself that it was certainly me, and not them.

So i changed, i became conservative, i wished i was home-schooled like the other kids, my style become long drapey covering clothing, i wore hardly any make-up and tried to make my personality emulate that of the girls around me. Of course, charades is a tiring game and can only last so long. I managed to keep some fooled, but hard feeling developed on my half of things, and that familiar feeling returned to my gut and i left. I found a church that was a bit wierder and tried to fit there.

I had convinced myself so well that i was a church person that i forgot who i had once aspired to be. I began to hate the religion all together. So i backed up and waited for the feeling in my stomach to change. Of course it didnt. I was left wondering what i was doing. I turned to substances. I had turned 21 so i began to drink, i smoked, i did it all. My body image declined as well. I had cut my hair as short as i could in a fit of defiance and regretted that as well. I believed that everyone around me despised me because i despised myself. That feeling in my stomach returned and stayed, becoming darker and darker and i slipped back into serious depression and suicidal tendencies. I tried cutting myself, but it hurt (imagine that) and i tried taking a lot of pills (but i got scared and made myself puke a lot) and i eventually just became restless and destructive. I could find no rest.

Realizing you've come to that point is a horrifying thing. I struggled with the idea of starting counseling. Eventually i did, and i realized my biggest struggle was trying to find an identity. As a small person growing into a big person, i didnt have the positive reinforcement at home to give me enough confidence to establish myself. I was always looking for approval. I couldn't even make small decisions for myself.

Since then, i try to keep in mind my skewed mindset, i try to keep in mind that i have emotional intensity that i sometimes cant control, and i try most to keep in mind what i like, what i dont like, my opinion, and what it takes to make one. I try to remember that those who mind dont matter and that those who matter dont mind. I spend a few more moments than most trying to decide what i want in line at the coffee shop, and i look for art in everything. I remember that the beatles and regina spektor make me happy and that its my personality to repeat a song album until i can sing along. There are a hundred million idiosyncrasies that make me who i am, and they have become precious like emeralds to me. I love when someone can point out something they associate solely with me. I know better what makes me happy, and Nikki Rice's comment in her note brought me through all those memories to remind me exactly that.

Poetry

So, for my poetry class, we have to push poetry out into the world for our final project. I decided to take a survey of 50 people, start the poetry ninjas, of which you will only know if you are one, and to write tiny poems on the little sleeves made to go around coffee cups to keep your hand from burning. I made 13. Anything from Wu Men to Emily Dickinson to Shell Silverstein. Im quite excited to put them up and see peoples reactions to them. :-D im going to watch from here. Unfortunately i do not have my camera. I think im going to go get it, along with the rest of what i need to finish my portfolio.

The survey was interesting. People said things i just didnt expect, named poets i didnt expect to hear, etc etc etc. Im going to make a pie graph for class if i can figure it out and put together a little powerpoint. :-D a VERY little powerpoint.

I thought, while thinking about the survey and how interesting people can be, what it would be like to truly invest in people and find out all the little things that make someone into who they are. How often do people discuss favorite authors or poets anymore, and yet, just about everyone i spoke to has written a poem or at least read one. It makes me want to ask a lot more people these kinds of questions :-D

ttfn, i must finish my portfolio!

Procrastination?

Procrastination:
What is up with that anyway? Why is it, that most things, by the time they are due, lose all value as necessary and i can find any and everything to do except that which must be completed? Its like i even come up with things to do that i would otherwise not want to do. Like this blog. Lord knows the appeal of it came solely from the fact that Nikki Raye Rice made one and it seemed like a good way to waste some time. I have always wanted to be a blogger, but lack the dedication. Maybe i will find it this time? Let's try.

I now have a poetry vocab test to study for, poetry final project to finish, packing to complete, studying to do for a health final, an ROTC final (complete with ridicule from my prof.), a Beat Lit exam to study for and im sure there is at least one other thing i'm forgetting. Not to mention i am moving this week! GAH! I guess i better put a decent size dent in this work now...OH I just remembered the poetry portfolio i have to fix too. I dread writing a sonnet. Maybe it will be easier once i start doing it. I hate iambic pentameter.

Well, this was not the happy, cheery first post i had hoped for, but perhaps it is the start of something beautiful. Now to go post to Nikki's blog. I have a heck of a poem to post!