transition is the name of the game

As my last post was nearly one year ago (yikes), I felt it was time for another update. On just a few of the big things, anyway.

First of all, I graduated college. With a Bachelor degree. So glad THAT hellacious ride is over- I never wanna go back EVER! Definitely not for a grad degree or something- yuck. I was told that if I got a four-year degree I'd never regret it; so far, I'm indifferent about that assertion, but probably only because I'm not directly utilizing it in my current retail job...

And I moved back to Washington two months ago. Living w/ my mom and step-dad in a rural part of town. AND I'm not paying rent for the first time in a couple years, thank you very much!

And because of the recent move, I feel that this blog title/theme is obviously a little outdated. Plus, I'm not a die-hard blogger, nor would I like to be one for a whole heap of reasons, at least at this point in my life.

So, I'll leave this blog up, but nothing else will be written on it.

This seems like a very abrupt end to the blog, especially because there is no summing-up of my life in Philadelphia herein. I wish I could express how I feel about leaving the city, reasons why I left, how I've felt since, what/who I miss, what/who I don't miss, etc. but it would take forever and never feel complete, as I am continuing to try to answer those myself.

But I will say this: my life at the end of my time in Philly was drastically different that it was when I first arrived. This may not make much sense, but so much of my identity was developed and is now connected to Philly because of relationships with beloved neighbors, friends, co-workers, peers, experiences in various places, and learning and cycling between apathy and passion toward social issues which are so prevalent in a socioeconomically diverse city such as Philly. Living in a city for the most formative years of my adult life (so far) was intense, to say the least. It's unbelievable how much can happen in three years, and I regret not utilizing this blog as a medium to take the space and time to process all of it, or at least a good deal of it. And I guess that's all I can say about it.

Well anyway, if ever I start another blog, I'll post the address here, but don't hold your breath! In the meantime, keep up with my sporadic twitter exploits :)

Thanks for reading, you three. Much love to you all.

I'm here! I'm here!

I am still alive and kicking. The last 6+ months in a nutshell:

April: the post below has a picture of our view from our front door. We were outside the day after a really scary incident w/ some former neighbors and trying to show people that we weren't scared of living in Kensington, on our block, in the face of intimidation, etc.

It's kind of a long, complicated, and personal story. But I'll just say that there are a lot of things that we could be afraid of, living in a "rough" area like we do, if we let it get to us (such as getting mugged, assaulted, harassed, hurt in other ways, etc.) but we don't and we try to be as confident and unafraid as we can. This incident trumped these, as it involved a personal vendetta against my housemate, as opposed to being randomly hurt in any of the above ways. ALL THAT TO SAY, everything has blown over, everything is cool, everybody's okay, and I think said former neighbors are in jail.

May: school ended, I flew back to Washington for a month, my step-sister got married, I got sick...

June: flew back to PA, readjusted, worked a lot, got a new housemate, Travis

July: my dear friend Michelle from the West came out for a few days, I started summer school, worked some more, rode my bike a lot

August: went to Maryland for a weekend, finished summer school, quit my job, went on a road trip w/ my dad, step-ma and dogs, visited family in Missouri, flew back to PA, Travis moved to another part of Philly, got a new housemate, Derek, one of my dearest friends and former mission year housemates moved back West :( big fat booooooo

September: Derek moved to another part of Philly, I started my SENIOR YEAR, started back @ the Sisters as a social work intern, got two new roommates from Kansas, Micah and Aubrey(short-term, leaving in late Nov), got super busy w/ all of the above, turned 24, celebrated the return of friends who had been abroad all summer, bought an orchid

October: former mission year housemate Sarah came to visit for a weekend, started helping a couple neighbor boys w/ reading for an hour/week, started freaking out for all my friends who are all of a sudden soon-to-be engaged, got some good grades, went to a laaaaaaaame "Halloween alternative" kid's thing @ a local church, at a lot of candy (which is nothing new ever), Oh! and found out I'm not on the verge of diabetes

AND
November: pretty decent so far. One friend got engaged (semi-shocker!), saw "Baby Mama" (one of the worst movies of all time), painted my nails, skipped church, got a new housemate, Carl (but not Winslow, which is honestly a little disappointing)

To come, in case I don't update ever again: lots of schoolwork this month (lots and lots), Thanksgiving in Snohomish, live out a Barry Manilow song ("weekend in New England"), freak out within the next three weeks, drive to MO w/ housemate Cambria for Xmas, spend New Year's Eve in St. Louis (?), drive back out here, take a week-long class for some extra credits for my degree, start the new semester...


Whew, all caught up! I think I did a pretty good job... don't think I missed much... Oh wait, I bought a business suit too.

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21

This picture is this verse incarnate. I can't explain everything that is going on here, but if anybody is the praying type, I would ask you to do so for my block.

Thanks friends.

Remembering

My 6-member team was packed into a 5-seating car on the way to sneak into a hotel to go swimming last summer. I started singing "Everything I do, I do for you" by Bryan Adams. One team member joined in, then two more, then the others. All in complete seriousness. No laughing or otherwise exploiting the whole experience. And everybody knew the words.

One of my favorite moments of Mission Year for sure.

So long, bragging rights.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/B01F824178ED2CD18625740C000986E7?OpenDocument

Just another post berating myself for not blogging :D

Really, I feel like these kind of posts are frequent (if you can call my writing on here "frequent"), so I'll spare you three or so readers the lame story and just let you know that, after much contemplation about the Internet, public vs. private life, whatever... on the sidebar, there's a thing that says "thinking and/or doing" (or something like that), which is a nice way of camouflaging the ugliness of the layout that is a Twitter account.

I KNOW, I know... I'll take the teasing and insulting... but it, so far, has been 1) better for me than blogging, in that I don't have a whole lot of time to sit down and write about things I've been thinking about in depth (which, believe you me, has not been all that prevalent lately) and need to write a bunch on. Thus, it has been 2) a nice and quick way to process daily happenings (kind of). So, there it is. I just got to the point where I was tired of being a hypocrite by reading other people's blogs and such, but not reciprocating, so to speak.

So, it's a step. A step in the direction of an inevitable fact that everybody's shit is gonna be everywhere on the WWW someday. Just wait. Oh, and enjoy all my updates.

"All politics are local"- Tip O'Neill

Here's how I know this is true:

I tend to have left-oriented views on politics. This being said, I feel it's best to have politicians in office who share my views (identity politics, anyone?).
I am covered under my dad's health insurance plan.


My dad tends to be mostly right-oriented. This being said, he feels it's best to have politicians in office who share his views. In fact, he works for a prominent Republican figure in Missouri, and if this guy wasn't in office, my dad would be out a job. His health insurance plan is through his job.

Although we don't have many stances on political issues in common, it's best that his views win out, at least in Missouri, so that he can keep his job. If he keeps his job, he keeps his insurance. If he keeps his insurance, he keeps me on his plan.

SO, even though I most likely would NOT vote for the guy who keeps my dad employed, it's best that he is elected. Otherwise, I wouldn't have health insurance.

How's that for a pickle?

I miss writing on here sometimes.

Like now. Every few months, I'll write something because I remember how much happens in my life and want to write just a little bit. This entry is in reaction to reading the other blog posts on this page.

New year, new semester, new faces. I, of course, have a lot of reading and work to do by tomorrow morning. My mom just came to visit for the weekend, which was a really good time. My fridge and freezer are full of food. I love unintended alliteration. One of my good friends from Washington is interning at my work and lives not three blocks from me. It was almost 70 degrees her today. Pretty awesome. Those are the big ones.

I suppose I'm done now. I know this is boring to read, so I apologize. And to make matters worse, I have no pictures because I am writing this from school! Dag.

I think my heart stopped when I heard about this

This totally blew me away. I can't even believe it or explain why.

Da Vinci's Last Supper alive with music?

Last Updated: 2:18am GMT 12/11/2007

A computer technician claims to have discovered a real da Vinci code after finding music hidden in Leonardo's masterpiece, The Last Supper.

Giovanni Maria Pala said that the hands of Jesus and the Apostles, and the loaves of bread in the picture each represented a note, which formed a 40-second composition.

He made the discovery after superimposing a stave - the five lines used in sheet music - on the painting. The composition emerges when the "notes" are read right to left, following Leonardo's own technique.

Mr Pala, who will publish his findings in a book next week, said: "It sounded really solemn, almost like a requiem."

Alessandro Vezzosi, of Tuscany's Leonardo museum, said the theory was "plausible", but added: "There's always a risk of seeing something that is not there, but it's certain that the spaces [in the painting] are divided harmonically.

"Where you have harmonic proportions, you can find music."

(from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/11/wsupper111.xml)

(H)ey, yo, MOVE it.

I've been identifying myself lately as a "hard, urban dweller." Maybe not always the "hard" part, but either way, I've lived in Philly for over a year now, and here's proof of this blessed lifestyle transformation:

- I drink coffee at least four days/week. Large coffees. No of that small , watching-my-figure business. Cutting out sugar- next goes cream.

- By my estimate, every fourth word out of my mouth (mainly when commuting)is one that the FCC wouldn't allow at their most lenient. It cracks me up, cussing. The combinations, such as "I'm a grown a-- man", "F--- that s---" (personal favorite), and, as noted by my little brother, "Hurts like a son of a b----". What do these even mean? If nothing else, cussing provides comic relief.

- I have seen at least three or four different mice today: one at work, two or three at home. After my initial yelp and "HEY!" they still hung around. These yelps have been less frequent, although seeing those same few mice run amok in our dining room has not. In fact, I just heard one in our wall. I might be getting to the point where we are co-existing peacefully, like when I had a hamster, kind of. But this means that extermination will get all the more difficult, as we're getting used to each other. My terms are these: don't crap everywhere, don't crawl on me, and don't give me hantavirus. Especially the hantavirus- I don't have health insurance.

So good, it hurts

For the last couple months, I have taken a very strong liking to jazz. For the first time in my life, really, and I don't know what spurred it on. Maybe it's kind of white noise to me w/ so much other noise; plus, when all of a sudden it's quiet, it's good filler music. In particular, I have been in awe of John Coltrane. "Equinox" was what got me hooked.

How life will be for me on any given day is really anybody's guess. Today was decent, then started to turn into not so decent. All of a sudden, I wanted to be by myself, so I sat here @ my computer and turned on good ole iTunes.

In my African-American history class today, my prof talked about jazz's roots in blues, Negro spirituals, sorrows songs, African lullabies... and how, being that jazz is mainly improvisational, it's like a dialog, in his words. Something about how the drums, the piano, the saxophone, all separate but coming together so nicely in conversation. Something about how you think there's a set pattern in the beginning of a song, then at the end, you can hardly recognize it. Something about how all the roots of jazz are so filled with pain, passion, a desire to go home.

How does this mix end up creating something so beautiful? I feel like jazz is one of the best expressions of life as I'm understanding it right now. Even now, listening to it has brought me such... not peace, well maybe a little... more like, a sense of home? Commonality? Whatever it is, it's deep for me, and it's good.

On my sudden epiphanies that 1. this blog has pretty much become entirely about ME, 2. not many people would find that premise for a blog all that interesting, 3. one of the reasons it's hard to have a social life is because I was previously in a program where nearly every aspect of sociality was dictated- nay, lovingly-guided (wink, to Mission Year), 4. these have been the hardest months of my life (Aug-Oct)... I have some loosely-related advice, taken from various folks, that I need to remember. And hey, why not take it yourself, you three readers out there.


Dear Self,

My God, just be HONEST, take care of yourself, and fight for the rights you have to get what you need.

Love,
Self

Just thinking

Which I am obligated to do, being in a scholastic environment. Sigh. I know that statement is terrible, but... I don't want to have student status anymore. I'm disenchanted with education. I wish that was enough to make me drop out, but there are definitely reasons why I'm still in; don't worry.

Apart from assignment, I've been thinking that I'm going to start referring to God as both a woman and a man. A higher-power marriage, if you will. I think that if other people started referring to him as both, it would make for a deeper understanding of her. Seeing God as our Mother and our Father, motherly qualities coupled with fatherly. A dual-gender guide. I think it's great, even if it's confusing. And counter-intuitive. And dangerous?

Well, okay. I mean, yeah, I guess so.

Update: am not doing paper for tomorrow. Too much analysis/effort for one measly page.
Here's a picture- kind of funny.

Six girls in college... maybe seven.

8! I finished a test that took me about 5 hours to do. Those 5 hours essentially included any and all work I would have needed to do to prepare for that class for any given session AND for that specific test. 5 hours of work + showing up to class = doing well on exams every month and a half? Deal. I feel like I can do anything.

7. I've been answering my phone more. And making phone calls more. I've invested in a good number of relationships via ye olde telephone, which is kinda new for me. Some at the expense of school, which bothers me only a tiny bit, if you know me. I have a paper to do before 7:40 tomorrow, er, today... morning. Plus sleep. No big.

6. I got some SPECTACULAR funding for my education, pretty much by chance.

5. I was talking to my step-grandma the other day, and she asked me what color of scarf I want for Christmas this year (like my 2 other scarves I've gotten for other Xmases). I said, "Well, I really like that purpleblue-" (she interrupts) " 'cripple-blue?!' " She is wonderful.

4. The internet I get @ my place = email and blogger, but that's it. Strange?

3. I'm really proud of my friends Stephen and Sarah today.

2. Life is pretty good, I think. Being a grown-up is, eh, mas o menos.

1. No pictures on this one! What gives.