But not so deep as in love I am

i hate these random restless "i-want-to-do-something-else" moods i get in. they vex me greatly.

In our world, there are two selves to each person. The one that everyone sees and interacts with, that everyone can touch and feel and hear and smell, is our Luminary. The other is our Umbra. In ancient times, everyone knew of both parts, and they nourished and cherished each as separate and whole. They understood that without one half, you could not have the other; and that even though the Umbra could not be seen, it was equally important as the Luminary. But something happened. The Philosophers came with their Light-giving, and put emphasis on only the Luminary, pushing back the Umbra to the shadows, where they said it belonged. We buried them deep within ourselves, smothering them, rendering them nearly useless. Some people attempted to revolt, but only succeeded in creating dark monsters, deformed beings who could see only the Umbra and who lived entirely in its world. We had no balance. We had only extremes. Our Luminaries took over, and our Umbrae receded into a seemingly harmless existence

Until we started dying.

Everyone.

The Philosophers tried to reason their way through. They applied all the skills they had discovered. Until finally they chose the best remedy they knew—apathy. They ignored the problem. People suppressed any thought that entertained the real reason behind the sickness, madness and ultimately, death. Our Umbrae were sick, and as a last effort, they were reasserting themselves. But no one knew this until it was nearly too late.

( insert subject line here)

i finished writing my shakespeare paper earlier than i expected and i drank some coffee and for once the caffeine is affecting me. I did all my laundry, cleaned my room, cleared up some space on my computer and did some yoga all after 1:30 at night. of course, i'll pay for it in the morning when i'm groggy and crabby in my Virginia Woolf class(which i actually quite enjoy contrary to my previous thoughts on VW)

since my fall break, it seems that a billion and one things have happened without anything really happening.....actually it started before fall break, so i guess i have to go back farhter than i suspected.

the week before fall break i think i got doused in pheromones that screamed to males "HIT ON ME! NOW!" in one sense, it was was very flattering. in another i kind of wanted to live in an all female society for a couple days. The first occurrence was by a spanish guy. why it took me coming all the way back home for a spanish guy to hit on me hardcore beats me, but maybe it's just because i could understand where his culture a bit. So i was talking to this kid on facebook jsut small talk and all of a sudden he pronounces that he loves me. yeah, really? cause we've never even talked before. i wasn't uite sure if he was joking, because you know, instant messaging can be dificult to decipher. but then he got extremely crude. i won't even repeat it, but let's just say that if he had said it to me in person and not online, he would no longer be able to have children. i didn't react as rudely in words as what i was thinking though because mostly i was just shocked. what a great experience, right? the next instance was much more decent and actually rather nice, so it was this crazy contrast between guys. Just when i was starting to think that guys were a hopeless endeavor and as i was beginning to contemplate running off to a nunnery(ok, maybe not that dramatic), i got asked out in a extremely traditional, albeit random way. one of my acquaintances i guess you could call him, came to my house and wanted to know if i would go out to dinner with him. i was fairly impressed. never before has a guy just come right out and asked me. so i said yes, even though i don't really know him that well and i'm not really that attracted to him. (is that horrible of me to give false hope?) it was a prety nice date, but there weren't any sparks or anything. it mostly just felt like hanging out with a friend. i'v talked with him on the phone a few times, and we might hang out again, but i dunno....
all of this has started me thinking a lot about my self-image issues. i realized that i get really uncompfortable when people compliment my physical appearance. and i actually talked with one of my guys friends(who used to have a crush on me at the beginning onf the semester???what???) about this. (actually we only talked about it because he made a point to ask meabout ti since i had mentioned it at church that morning while we were talking with a group of friends. we had a happy circle that morning/afternoon because it seemed kind of necessary. that was a pretty awesome sunday...see facebook for cool pictures of it, haha) but anyway, i really am not sure why i think i'm not beautiful. but i guess i've kind of realized that that is what i think sometimes. and whenever i try to reason out why i feel this way, my thoughts get all jumbled and mangled and go off on tangents. but i think it's starting to form some kind of pattern that has to do with how i have never dated anyone while everyone else in my family has, that i don't have a significant other, that every guy i've liked hasn't liked me back, and that when guys have liked me, it tends to be in awkward ways or situation. also that i have a lot of friends that i think are just gorgeous including my sister, and i always seem to feel like i'm the "smart"one, not the "pretty" one. which i know is a bit silly because i don't have to be labelled, but that is just what people do, they label themselves to have some sort of identity. so there is my miniature identity crisis. sometimes i wish it were as easy as my userpic made it look......

on less deep occurrences in my life...i am going to have a crapload of busy weekends coming up. ready for this? ok.
this weekend: fall retreat for campus crusade! i'm excited for this.
next weekend (nov. 7): choir concert and youthfest. basically i get to have my weekend sucked up by my choir and toting around highschoolers who are watching us/trying to learn from us. ha!
nov. 13- writing conference at BGSU!!!! i'm super exctied for this. at the beginning of the semester one of my english profs asked me if i wanted to go to this conference with five or six other students. it's a conference with mostly grad students, so it is going to be an awesome experience, and hopefully i'll learn a lot about writing. plus, i'll be in BG so i will most likely be able to see Ruth and maybe even Emily!!!!!!!!
nov. 20- music theater performance. my first ever! i'm excited but right now kind of freaking out because we haven't even memorized or blocked all the scenes. yikes. also, the week before this is international week and i'm hosting a one mile barefoot walk with my housemates!!!!!!!!! so awesome, if you don't know about the kind of walk go here www.takethewalk.net it'll explain it. also, i have to miss the annual international dinner for my music theater performance. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. i'm extremely angry about that, but what can you do?
weekend after is thanksgiving! and then only three weeks after that til the end of the semester. like i said--crazy.
oh! and i am registering for my classes tomorrow. hoepfully i'll get the ones i want.
hopefully soemtime soon i will have more writing or stories to post here. i've been very musically creative in the past week, writing a couple songs(lyrics at least) and the beginnings of some melodies and stuff. i lvoe writing songs, but i get frsutrated because i actually have to work at it. go figure.

The Spirit Giver....i already gave a little bit of an explanation of it. i'm not going to post any of my notes, just what i've written of the story so far.

"The Father delights in breathing His Spirit into His waiting child as he fellowships with Him."
~Andrew Murray


Imagine a planet, if you will, where all of the people are dying. They are slowly but surely losing their lives; day after day, month after month, year after year--they wither away and turn to dust. They know not why they are dying; in fact, they they cannot even see that they die at all. Until one day, a man from another planet visits and reveals to them the source of death. It is their spirits; their spirits are shrivelling up and becoming inane. they are losing their life force, their very being, from within, and there seems to be no solution. This visitor tries to
explain to them that there is a solution, if only they will stop holding on to their own spirits so tightly, if only they will be willing to give them up. but the people keep grasping. they hold onto their dying lives with such a fierce strength that it smothers them more quickly than before. and so the visitor leaves in sadness, even as the people chase him away, threatening to kill him. Little did they know that this visitor was the only one who could save them from theirselves.

i'm going to write an allegory. i'm kind of nervous. but so far it's going well. i will post part of it eventually, but it's on my laptop and i'm using a school computer.
updates!

this weekend i am getting paid to go to hocking hills and hang out with a bunch of international students. i love my job. but it's going to be a lot of driving in hills in rainy weather, so it will be interesting, and i'm not sure how much hiking i'll actually do. it will still be nice to get out og new concord though.
on wednesday i'm going to a hanson concert! i'm so excited! i'm going to to the walk before hand, which is barefoot and it's going to be cold and probably rainy, but it will be cool anyway. i got one of my friends from school to come with me, so it will be even better. i am realllllly psyched for this, especially the walk part. i even got my biology prof to let me take my test early so that i can go to it.

on friday i'm going home to see LAURA and STEFANIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i saw laura less than a year ago, but i haven't seen stef for a few years, and i can't wait. i'll only be there for one night, because the next day they are going to chicago, but the four hour drive is SO worth it to see them. then on saturday i am going to another hanson concert with bekah and mom. i am a bit ashamed of my groupie-like behaviour, but oh well, i figured since i'm in town i might as well go. plus it means i get to be home that weekend. it is a bit sill because i'll be home the next weekend too because it is my fall break, but whatever.
oh, then the weekend of halloween, i am going to a fall retreat for campus crusade. i haven't really been excited about campus crusade before, because i dunno, i just haven't, bt recently i'm getting more excited about it. i am going through discipleship(which sounds serious but really i just hang out with) with an on staff person, who is AWESOME and she is becoming like a big sister, and she is getting me to look forward to awesome things. fall retreat should be cool. and there's a costume party! so basically, all of october for me is already planned. holy cow.
so there's my update. it is difficult to believe how quickly this semester is going, but it's kind of exciting too. i really like my school and what i'm studying(even though it requires reading at least three books a week and writing mounds and mounds of papers) and i love that i can still go home when i want(yay for having a car and a license!)



random note for gretchen and haley:
iambic pentameter vampires. ask me about it.

Rainy day's travels

Fueled by chocolate and
tea from my japanese pot,
old, yet new, for me
at least.
watching the travels of a
lonely man and
wishing that I too could be paid for wandering
aimlessly.
Even the elephants' eyes
seem to carry that
otherworldly wisdom of
the east
as they slowly frolic
and calmly joke with
the humans who respect
their hugeness.

It's true. I almost just have given up entirely on trying to figure anything out anymore. i can't even get my own insides sorted before someone else comes along to mangle them up and take everything all personal.

point 1- I am a friendly person. I like to help people, and i like to share my thoughts as well as my interests and even possessions. i think it's fun. i really do. but that does NOT mean that i like you as more than a friend. okay, so i say this, but i don't blame anyone for thinking it, because i've partaken in this exact assumption before, and i know how it looks. but i really don't think i should stop being nice to people just to clearly show them that i'm not flirting.

point 2- i seem to have this weird tendency to start liking my friends. i hate it. it complicates things. that's all i'm saying about that.

point 3- why the heck all of a sudden do i keep getting hit on by everyone? seriously! i did not go to europe and get super hot or anything. i did change my clothing style a bit, but it's not slutty, it's just a bit more dressy. i wear nice clothes because i like to look nice, not because i want everyone and their brother to check me out. granted, it is very flattering, and it's this paradoxical twist between liking the attention and knowing that i probably shouldn't like it? i dunno anymore, i think i have a lot more self-image issues than i want to admit, but i don't really know if i'm ready to own up to them or deal with them yet.

point 4- why is it easier to get along with some people over long distances?

point 5- i really hope that females are as confusing to males as they are to us. because if not, then life as i know it is just going to implode, and i think my brain and heart might eat themselves out of confoundment. really. why is it so difficult, and why the heck does all this matter so much to me? it kind of makes me angry.

i don't have a point 6.

hmmmmmmm i feel like i should post at least a short update.
my first week back at school was crazy. well all last week was just getting to know the international students and helping out with them, and then kind of catching up with some people from freshman year. but today was insane. i love being back in classes and i'm excited about the classes i'm taking, but i'm already emotionally tired. i have met so many people just within the past week, and it's a bit overwhelming. i am nto an extrovert, in spite of what many people think, and although i'm not exactly shy, it really does take a lot of effort for me to just wlak up to someone and introduce myself. i am getting a lot better at it now, especially with all this practice, but being nice and welcoming ALL the time is very draining.
only the first day of classes and already my head is spinning.

okay, it's official, gretchen and i need to start speaking spanish to eowynn and shia. check it out:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_med_healthbeat_bilingual_tots 


wait, so if we talk baby talk to people in other languages, then they'll learn it better????

so i didn't write any new stuff today, but i am going over some stuff that i hand wrote and am going to copy it to my computer. wheneer i do this, i always end up changing things around a bit, so it's still good ractice. but i'm already starting to lose momentum on ths practicing thing. darnitall.
it's like flossing, unles i reall get in the habit of doing it everyday, i dont do it. and then i gt plaque. or in this case, plaque of the brain? writer's cavities?
i dunno, trying to be creative here. 



wooooooooo, scary mask icon!!!!!!!!

i didn't feel like adding on to any of my existing stories, so i googled "creative writing prompts" and wrote a short little blurb. true, it didn't take me an hour, but it was good practice, and i've neevr written anything like this before. it's done and finished in 15 minutes!
enjoy!

Prompt:
Weave a story around the mixed proverb: Silence is a great healer

 

( Silence )( Silence )

 

so i wrote for half an hour last night and didn't really accomplish much, only a few pages, in my notebook that was like half of two different scenes for my play. But tonight i sat down and wrote on my computer. i worked on my snow white story ( i'm doing a retelling of it, where snow white has six sisters, and is friends with her step mother...yes i know it sounds strange, but it maes sense, believe me.) anyway, i sat down and wrote for an hour and got over 2,000 words!!!!!!! some of it's jsut mediocre, but i hashed out quite a bit more of the story in my head while i was writing and made a few important character decisions...like one of the daughters being an albino( but she's not snow white...). if i can keep this up i think i will improve a lot just by then end of the summer. i'm trying to fill up all my spare, half-filled notebooks i have lying around, partly so i can have an excuse to buy more and partly because i like to have things completed, even if they're only filled with bits and pieces of things. i'm hoping to work on a different story every day, and only stick to that one story for the hour, instead of skipping around. i'm trying to discipline my mind to stop being so ADD in my creativity/ it's a weird combination, because i have to let my mind wander enough for my imagination to glean from my surroundings and my random thoughts, but at the same time i have t keep it in check, so i don't go off on a tangent and stop writing. i'm pretty rpud of myself with the snow white story, because so far i've written it chronologically, and although i knwo how it is going to end, i'm restraining myself from skipping aorund. i want to try out all the different styles of writing a story before i can choose what works best for me. also, i am kind of practicing for school next year. since i am swtching my major to english, i figured i should probably brush up on my rapidly declining english skills. and writing is pretty good practice, as well as being rather fun!
so there it is....
word count for today-- 2,107!

i need to write more.
since i've returned, i've only written maybe 1000 words. which is bad. and it was a new story, not even working on my already partially formed ones.
therefore...
i am going to try to practice writing.
that means that i will try to write for an hour a day, on only one or two of my stories in that time period, and i won't take any breaks, just write. if it's good, then i'll keep it, and if it's bad, then i'll toos it, but at least i will be practicing.
but i am so bad at practicing anything.
so, if you see me, ask me if i've written yet today. it will help keep me motivated.

wow, so i'm just getting on a roll here starting new stories. but this one might actually be finished eventually becuase it is based on a very old traditional story. 

( New (old) story! )

i'm not sure if i posted any of the story i'm writing called the astronomer, but i'll post everything i have of it now. it's going to be fun. i had a dream on night with three of the characters in it, and i wrote a few scenes, but then i didn't know what else to do with it. recent;y i came up with an actualy plot(which is kind of necessary, don't you think?) so i've written a bit more. i can never seem to finish stories though.....anywho, here 'tis!

( The Astronomer bits'n'pieces )

only 2 more weeks of classes......CRRRRAZY!
mostly the classes are already done with, i jsut have to do a presentaion in italian class whcih will be super easy cause it only has to be like 3 minutes long, and then i have to finish writing  a paer for my history of art class. then i have exams, and i am done with my second year of college. wow, it really has gone incredibly fast.
however, i will have six weeks after my classes are done with which i will be doing, mostly nothing. i am going to marseilles at the end of may, and hoping to stay for a week in france and go back to lyon to visit flore and family, and i still need to go to barcelona and portugal. susana(my roommate) has her exams at the end of may and the middle of june, so she will still be at the apartment, which is good, cause i really don't want to be there by myself. but i want to go to portugal with her so i can see where she lives. and i'm hoping that i can do that for another week, so that leaves only four weeks of nothing. btu at the same time i don't want to spend tto much moeny on travelling, because i need to save for a car for when i get back home. yes, everyone, i am finally getting my license. i will have a month and a half in whcih to perfect my driving skills. okay, let's admit it, not perfect. just be good enough to pass and be a safe driver.
so there's a bit of an update. i am at the point now where i can't wait to go home. i'm not at all homesick, i ust want summer to be here, and to see my friends, and get all the stuff done that needs to get done this summer before i got back to muskingum.

did that give you any indication of what i'm feeling right now?

so here's the story, it's the most horrible april fools joke ever, and what's worse is that i played it on myself, and it wasn't a joke, i'm just being bitterly ironic.

on monday i sat down at my university to use internet, because i needed to register for my muskingum classes enxt semester. i always am pessimistic when registering, because all of my previous experiences have been catastrophic. and by catastrophic of course i mean that i never get into the classes i want, and have to settle for the crappy leftovers. so why should this time be any different?
well to my extreme surprise, i found every single class i wanted to take was open! astronomy, archery, british literature, creative writing, math for liberal arts, intro to psychology, EVERYTHING!
i registered for them then and there.
or so i thought.
and now it's wednesday. thank God the library was full and i had to come to the University to use internet, i went to look at my class schedule and much to my surprise, i wasn't registered for a SINGLE CLASS. i'm thinking to myslef WTF? is this some clerical error?

but oh no, my dear readers, it was no clerical error. it was me, being technologically inhibited.
i forgot to scroll down on each class and press the secondary register button. you can't just check the box of the classes you want, no that onyl says the classes you would prefer to take. (really, registrar, if i want to take the class and there is a spot open, shouldn't it just automatically register?) so here i am, two measly days later, having to find completely new classes. becuase, of course, every one i wanted is full. college registering is ruthless. if one spot is open, people pounce. i do it myself. it's adog eat dog online world, it is.
and now, instead of the 17hours i wanted to take, i only found 12. and i have to take algebra, and organismal biology. the english classes i found are still okay, because really, i am content with anything that has to do with reading.
but goodbye astronomy and archery.

i. am. angry.
so there you go, folks, my fun april fools day,
and i should be overjoyed today because mom and dad are coming tomorrow, but it is so hard for me to optimistic about things like this. they tend to poison my day. so i am praying that God will give me a better attitude, and that the email i sent to my advisor will accomplish something. and maybe that somebody will drop out of astronomy and archery.

i love that the frustrated icon is a windows icon......perfectly describes frustration

and now it's story time. this is just a short one that i wrote the other day.


 

( Story )

 

( Story )

( Story )

( Story )

( Story )

( Story )

 

You're living your life as if
you're always on the edge
Of a giant gaping gulf,
Balancing on the ledge.

You're tangled in a web
Of overdone Mistakes
So tired and confused
They've left you in their wake
But if you'd step outside
Your bubble of a world
I think you could abide
In the hope that He provides

Oh why are you walking the tightrope
when beside you there's a bridge,
and a guide to help you cross it,
and a shield against the wind?

All of your decisions are made in the same manner
what's best for now?
what feels okay?
the long term doesn't matter...

You can't keep this up much longer
without them catching you.
you'll have to change this sooner
Because later will never be free.

oh why are you walking the tightrope
when beside you there's a bridge
and a guide to help you cross it
and a shield against the wind?

the funny thing is, he'll catch you
in spite of all the mistakes
his nets are always there
when you humbly decide to wake

so why are you walking the tightrope
when beside you there's a bridge
and a guide to help you cross it
and a shield against the wind?

alright, here's a bit more.......
but only a bit.
( for you reading pleasure..... )

i'm currently working on nine different stories right now. firefly prince(my play) is compounding upon itself and turning into a book. but then i get
frustrated because the more i discover about my characters and about the plot, the more particular and picky i get with how i write. I want everything
to be perfect. I want everyone to see the story and the pictures in my head how i see it. and i don't know how to get it out. i write and write, but it never
seems perfect enough. if i write faster, then i miss detail. if i write slower, then i forget part of the direction i wanted to go in. If i write just dialogue,
then you lose the picture. if i write just descriptions, you can't hear the character's voices. And i look ridiculous when i write too, becuase i act out
the characters as i write down their dialogue. and then i read and reread it, and act it out some more. and then i'll stop to draw a picture. and then another
scene will pop into my head and i have to drop my pencil and type some more. i'm slightly insane when i write. it's like there are people inside me trying
to get out through the words( like multiple personality disorder...haha)

i don't know if i'll ever be satisfied with my work. but i do know that i have a LOT to learn yet about writing.
next time i post i'll probably have nine more stories going.
stupid people in my head.
yes, i know, i'm crazy.



and now......another start of a story. yes, it's a fanfic, i'm ashamed to say. i've been trying to avoid anfics, but i just thought, what the heck, why not? and it won't be a typical cheesy one, it actually has a plot. so here we go....
 

 

( story )