There is a bright spot on my computer screen and it is making me paranoid because I'm afraid it's going to start multiplying. According to the internet this happens when water hits the LCD screen, so I've almost considered wiping the whole screen with a wet cloth so maybe it will just become a SUPER BRIGHT SCREEN. Yep. I'm sure that's exactly how that would work.
Remember how I said I wanted a skunk as a pet? I also want a burrowing owl. True story, bro.
This quarter, I've had my first experience with those huge lecture classes that everyone thinks of when they think about college. The lecture hall my Theater 100 class has a balcony with more seats! I didn't realize this until halfway through class when I looked up and say someone's shoes hanging over the balcony right above my head. It's really cool being in a lecture class that big, especially since if I look hard enough, I can find several people I know (in a university of tens of thousands, I have no clue how that works). Everyone talks about how impersonal big universities like this are, but I don't see it at all! I love huge lectures because I know I have a connection with everyone in the room (okay, I feel that way in Theater, I could care less about my Math peers). Plus, as my mom loves to point out, my Japanese classes keep getting smaller as I go on, and I know ninety percent of the people in my Japanese 103 class, and will continue to know them for another three years, since it's my major. Ohio State is a weird place, how the campus can seem so big and so small at the same time!
I swear that spot on my screen is moving. Legit.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Hello College. Remember Me, the Eco Freak?
Honestly, I always sort of figured that if there was one thing that college students would know about and uphold, it would be recycling.
I'm sure I didn't have the strongest grounds to back up this theory, but really now. College students are supposed to be the ones who know about the world. They're smarter (perhaps) than the average human, more likely to be a hipster and less likely to be a crack addict than the average high schooler or drop out. So of course that means that they should care more about the planet, and living in a sustainable environment, right?
Well, apparently I was wrong. No one - no one - in the Thompson library understands recycling.
Like, okay, it's one thing to simply not recycle. Sure, I want people to recycle. I want at least some of our resources to be reused so that we are not continually taking needlessly from the environment, but if people refuse to take part in that, I'm not going to pick a fight. Well, unless I know you - then I'll pick a fight. But I avoid that kind of thing with complete strangers.
But here's the problem we have at the library, and probably all over campus; people don't seem to know what goes in a recycling can. For instance; the styrofoam takeout containers from Canes? NO. The plastic bags from the grocery store? NO. Ziploc bags, apple cores, pizza boxes (still with pizza inside), broken mechanical pencils, tea bags? This is what I see every day when I put my apple juice bottle into the recycling (the trash can, I might add, contrasts nicely with the recycling; it normally has all kinds of paper and plastic). I mean, can anything really be done with the recycling that is taken out from here? Clearly, less than half of the stuff in the recycling can will be recycled, but is there a way that they sort it out, or do the recycling men just make a judgement decision and pitch all of it? I asked my co-worker one day why she put her used gum in the recycling. She told me it was because the janitors just put all of the recycling cans in the dumpster anyway. I mean really, what's the point of having recycling cans at this point? Clearly, no one except Environmental Policy majors can figure out how to use them.
I'm sure I didn't have the strongest grounds to back up this theory, but really now. College students are supposed to be the ones who know about the world. They're smarter (perhaps) than the average human, more likely to be a hipster and less likely to be a crack addict than the average high schooler or drop out. So of course that means that they should care more about the planet, and living in a sustainable environment, right?
Well, apparently I was wrong. No one - no one - in the Thompson library understands recycling.
Like, okay, it's one thing to simply not recycle. Sure, I want people to recycle. I want at least some of our resources to be reused so that we are not continually taking needlessly from the environment, but if people refuse to take part in that, I'm not going to pick a fight. Well, unless I know you - then I'll pick a fight. But I avoid that kind of thing with complete strangers.
But here's the problem we have at the library, and probably all over campus; people don't seem to know what goes in a recycling can. For instance; the styrofoam takeout containers from Canes? NO. The plastic bags from the grocery store? NO. Ziploc bags, apple cores, pizza boxes (still with pizza inside), broken mechanical pencils, tea bags? This is what I see every day when I put my apple juice bottle into the recycling (the trash can, I might add, contrasts nicely with the recycling; it normally has all kinds of paper and plastic). I mean, can anything really be done with the recycling that is taken out from here? Clearly, less than half of the stuff in the recycling can will be recycled, but is there a way that they sort it out, or do the recycling men just make a judgement decision and pitch all of it? I asked my co-worker one day why she put her used gum in the recycling. She told me it was because the janitors just put all of the recycling cans in the dumpster anyway. I mean really, what's the point of having recycling cans at this point? Clearly, no one except Environmental Policy majors can figure out how to use them.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Forgotten
I forget how many forms of creativity and media I have access to. I have a habit of getting stuck in a bubble with a single form for weeks verging on months, and forgetting that I can express myself in any other way.
For instance, there are times when my copic markers are my most prized possession, valued over every other item in my life. Then there are times like now when my markers sit on their own upstairs in my study, waiting for me to remember that they are an option in my life. It's not that I don't love them dearly, it's just that I forget about them. The same is true for any number of other media. I've been taking pictures of everything lately, which is something that I have not done in a long (read: loooooooooooong) time. I've gotten caught up in the thrill of getting a new, good camera, and finding out what I can take pictures of, and who I can take pictures of without them noticing and thinking that I'm a freak. Because of this, though, I've left drawing behind. I haven't drawn anything in two weeks. But do you know what I haven't done for even longer? I haven't written any stories for a longer time than that. Plus, it's been years since I've done poetry. Did you know I can write poetry? I mean, I'm not all that good at it but I certainly have the ability, and in the past I have exercised that ability in a big way. But I haven't done that in a while.
Here's the problem; I want to get better. I want to get better at everything I do. But I do so much. I've never been the one to find my own category and stick with it. No, I find my own category and oh look - there's something over there I want to try! I made a camera case this weekend. I sewed a mouse and a sunflower onto the back. Did you know I could sew? Add that to the list of things that I forget I can do. I want to get better at everything, but I never stick with something long enough to really improve. I have the artists on the internet that I really look up to for their artwork, and I want my work to be like them. I want to improve to have a similar style, but the second I start getting invested in studying how they do anatomy, or how they shade their pictures, I find another amazing artwork and artists and oh I want my artwork to look more like theirs!
I honestly really want to have an internet following. It's my dream. How am I supposed to get there if I cant have a unified enough art style, or be able to stick to one medium? You don't see that on the internet. You don't see people who do everything. They find one thing they're good at and they stick to it. I want that to be me. I want to be amazing at something. How am I supposed to do that, though, when there are so many different ways for me to express myself? I can't figure out what to do! It makes my life even more difficult with my obsessive need to archive things. I need to stick them in containers of the like. All of the line drawings together! All of the clay models together! Photographs, line up by date over here! But do I still put them all on the same site? Do I put different mediums on different sites? What do I do if I have something that fits in multiple categories, or if I draw a picture that goes with a story? How do I organize that?
I was told the other day that blog posts are meant to be short. I had been aiming at longer blog posts since I started blogging. Maybe I should stick to building bookcases.
For instance, there are times when my copic markers are my most prized possession, valued over every other item in my life. Then there are times like now when my markers sit on their own upstairs in my study, waiting for me to remember that they are an option in my life. It's not that I don't love them dearly, it's just that I forget about them. The same is true for any number of other media. I've been taking pictures of everything lately, which is something that I have not done in a long (read: loooooooooooong) time. I've gotten caught up in the thrill of getting a new, good camera, and finding out what I can take pictures of, and who I can take pictures of without them noticing and thinking that I'm a freak. Because of this, though, I've left drawing behind. I haven't drawn anything in two weeks. But do you know what I haven't done for even longer? I haven't written any stories for a longer time than that. Plus, it's been years since I've done poetry. Did you know I can write poetry? I mean, I'm not all that good at it but I certainly have the ability, and in the past I have exercised that ability in a big way. But I haven't done that in a while.
Here's the problem; I want to get better. I want to get better at everything I do. But I do so much. I've never been the one to find my own category and stick with it. No, I find my own category and oh look - there's something over there I want to try! I made a camera case this weekend. I sewed a mouse and a sunflower onto the back. Did you know I could sew? Add that to the list of things that I forget I can do. I want to get better at everything, but I never stick with something long enough to really improve. I have the artists on the internet that I really look up to for their artwork, and I want my work to be like them. I want to improve to have a similar style, but the second I start getting invested in studying how they do anatomy, or how they shade their pictures, I find another amazing artwork and artists and oh I want my artwork to look more like theirs!
I honestly really want to have an internet following. It's my dream. How am I supposed to get there if I cant have a unified enough art style, or be able to stick to one medium? You don't see that on the internet. You don't see people who do everything. They find one thing they're good at and they stick to it. I want that to be me. I want to be amazing at something. How am I supposed to do that, though, when there are so many different ways for me to express myself? I can't figure out what to do! It makes my life even more difficult with my obsessive need to archive things. I need to stick them in containers of the like. All of the line drawings together! All of the clay models together! Photographs, line up by date over here! But do I still put them all on the same site? Do I put different mediums on different sites? What do I do if I have something that fits in multiple categories, or if I draw a picture that goes with a story? How do I organize that?
I was told the other day that blog posts are meant to be short. I had been aiming at longer blog posts since I started blogging. Maybe I should stick to building bookcases.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Never Underestimate a Mountain Goat
Mountain goats are wholly unappreciated creatures. Has anyone else noticed this? They live in the mountains, for one thing. For another, they have been known to climb trees. Can your canary live in the mountains? Can your goldfish climb trees? I don't think so. Mountain goats are truly skilled creatures.
Speaking of amazing and adorable creatures; I want a skunk. When I get my own house, I'm going to own two cats and a skunk. That is my plan of action. The skunk will be named Miguel. We'll have fun times.
Speaking of amazing and adorable creatures; I want a skunk. When I get my own house, I'm going to own two cats and a skunk. That is my plan of action. The skunk will be named Miguel. We'll have fun times.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Afraid of the Dark?
Sometimes, I'm frightened of really weird things. Well, okay my roommate Testa seems to think that it's weird whenever anything frightens me, but we're excluding that opinion.
There is this weird memory I have. It's probably not a memory, really, but I can't tell what it really is. When I think of it, a picture forms in my mind. It's the skyline of a city, but it's not a realistic sort of skyline. The colors are all flat and bright, as if they're made of construction paper. The image of this, however, wasn't always this flat. I know that it used to at least elude to the idea that it was three dimensional, it was a real place out of my memory at some point, I can feel it. When the image comes to mind, it connects itself to the Columbus Public Library, so I'm guessing it's an image that I saw when I went there at some point as a kid. I get this feeling that it was something I saw, something that actually existed, but I don't know where in the library or by the library I would have seen such a place. It could be something that I saw in a picture book at the library, but even so I would think that I would remember this book, or at least the image as an illustration in some way.
But no. This image, dream, memory whatever it is comes into my mind in the most unexpected of times; most often in my dreams. When I have a real vivid dream, this city scape is in the background. It's been in several dreams over the years, appearing outside the window in airports and in the distance during a deadly capture the flag contest. Over time, I think the image has certainly changed, and I can only sort of sense what it used to be, but it's still there, unbidden, in the corner of my mind.
That's what scares me. I don't know where this image comes from, but it appears at those weird points when I have long since forgotten it, and then it is there again. It's hauntingly familiar and horribly distant at the same time.
There is this weird memory I have. It's probably not a memory, really, but I can't tell what it really is. When I think of it, a picture forms in my mind. It's the skyline of a city, but it's not a realistic sort of skyline. The colors are all flat and bright, as if they're made of construction paper. The image of this, however, wasn't always this flat. I know that it used to at least elude to the idea that it was three dimensional, it was a real place out of my memory at some point, I can feel it. When the image comes to mind, it connects itself to the Columbus Public Library, so I'm guessing it's an image that I saw when I went there at some point as a kid. I get this feeling that it was something I saw, something that actually existed, but I don't know where in the library or by the library I would have seen such a place. It could be something that I saw in a picture book at the library, but even so I would think that I would remember this book, or at least the image as an illustration in some way.
But no. This image, dream, memory whatever it is comes into my mind in the most unexpected of times; most often in my dreams. When I have a real vivid dream, this city scape is in the background. It's been in several dreams over the years, appearing outside the window in airports and in the distance during a deadly capture the flag contest. Over time, I think the image has certainly changed, and I can only sort of sense what it used to be, but it's still there, unbidden, in the corner of my mind.
That's what scares me. I don't know where this image comes from, but it appears at those weird points when I have long since forgotten it, and then it is there again. It's hauntingly familiar and horribly distant at the same time.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Transition
It's the strangest thing to see that life goes on without me.
I spent a lot of time in high school thinking about what college would be like. I think I spent even more time in high school trying to avoid thinking about it. College was this frightening other-world kind of place. It wasn't quite real, and in all honesty, I regarded it the same way I regarded heaven; sure, it existed, but it was so far away that I would never really get there. It was a scary place where the workload was supposed to be so much that normal humans wouldn't function under the stress, and spend their days eating Ramen noodles and having stress attacks about the next test. It was a scary place because I knew that a lot of the people that I had closest relations with wouldn't be there any more.
Then I graduated. In all honesty, all of those thoughts about college sort of left my mind in the transition. In those summer months, I didn't think much about the high school world I left behind, or the fact that I was going to my dream college in a few months. Things became sort of surreal and at the same time so incredibly real. I moved into my ministry house with girls that I had known for years that had all graduated before me - I had dreaded and looked forward to this moment as well. I loved these girls and had missed them terribly when they graduated, but it was still the scariest thing to have to grocery shop for myself, to buy my own toiletries when they ran out, and to manage to figure out how to buy text books and get to class on time. One big change happened after another and it was all so much that it didn't even register to me what was happening.
Now, I'm in my second quarter of college. Life has developed an approximate, if slightly rocky, routine. Finally, I've started to look back on the life that I left.
And realize that other people are still living it.
A picture was posted on facebook that made me think this. It was a webcam photo of, I believe, Kevin, Jill, and Kelley. The three of them were all in my high school homechurch, Alpha, with me. Kevin should be a senior this year, and Kelley and Jill should be sophomores. They are in this world that I left behind, and they seem to be thriving in it. Back when I was in Alpha, relationships were a bit shaky. The group had just started growing my senior year, but people were still getting their bearings, figuring out what kind of role they had in the group. I remember - it seems like years ago now - that one of the things that Joe and I (the two seniors of the group last year) worried about the most was what would happen when we were gone. We were the two leaders of the group, and the juniors at the time did not seem anywhere near to stepping up to fill the spots.
But I guess something changed. I don't know exactly what, but I know that that group has continued to grow. It's gotten better, even without me being there. I know a few college students that have stepped in as leaders because the group is so big, and it looks like people are actually starting to relate to each other more. Kevin, one of the two now-seniors, has at least stepped up to the point of being more than willing to drive people to Alpha this year, which is so much more than he was doing last year (and needed too, because in the past Joe and I were the only ones with cars). I don't know the details of Alpha anymore, I did graduate after all, but I hear updates every week, little accomplishments from the group, how it keeps growing, the breakthroughs that people have. It's amazing, and really weird to think about. I mean, I'm no longer there. Alpha is no longer my home. Yet often I have the thought that I'll be going there on Sunday, just like I did for those four years of high school. Like nothing ever changed.
I spent a lot of time in high school thinking about what college would be like. I think I spent even more time in high school trying to avoid thinking about it. College was this frightening other-world kind of place. It wasn't quite real, and in all honesty, I regarded it the same way I regarded heaven; sure, it existed, but it was so far away that I would never really get there. It was a scary place where the workload was supposed to be so much that normal humans wouldn't function under the stress, and spend their days eating Ramen noodles and having stress attacks about the next test. It was a scary place because I knew that a lot of the people that I had closest relations with wouldn't be there any more.
Then I graduated. In all honesty, all of those thoughts about college sort of left my mind in the transition. In those summer months, I didn't think much about the high school world I left behind, or the fact that I was going to my dream college in a few months. Things became sort of surreal and at the same time so incredibly real. I moved into my ministry house with girls that I had known for years that had all graduated before me - I had dreaded and looked forward to this moment as well. I loved these girls and had missed them terribly when they graduated, but it was still the scariest thing to have to grocery shop for myself, to buy my own toiletries when they ran out, and to manage to figure out how to buy text books and get to class on time. One big change happened after another and it was all so much that it didn't even register to me what was happening.
Now, I'm in my second quarter of college. Life has developed an approximate, if slightly rocky, routine. Finally, I've started to look back on the life that I left.
And realize that other people are still living it.
A picture was posted on facebook that made me think this. It was a webcam photo of, I believe, Kevin, Jill, and Kelley. The three of them were all in my high school homechurch, Alpha, with me. Kevin should be a senior this year, and Kelley and Jill should be sophomores. They are in this world that I left behind, and they seem to be thriving in it. Back when I was in Alpha, relationships were a bit shaky. The group had just started growing my senior year, but people were still getting their bearings, figuring out what kind of role they had in the group. I remember - it seems like years ago now - that one of the things that Joe and I (the two seniors of the group last year) worried about the most was what would happen when we were gone. We were the two leaders of the group, and the juniors at the time did not seem anywhere near to stepping up to fill the spots.
But I guess something changed. I don't know exactly what, but I know that that group has continued to grow. It's gotten better, even without me being there. I know a few college students that have stepped in as leaders because the group is so big, and it looks like people are actually starting to relate to each other more. Kevin, one of the two now-seniors, has at least stepped up to the point of being more than willing to drive people to Alpha this year, which is so much more than he was doing last year (and needed too, because in the past Joe and I were the only ones with cars). I don't know the details of Alpha anymore, I did graduate after all, but I hear updates every week, little accomplishments from the group, how it keeps growing, the breakthroughs that people have. It's amazing, and really weird to think about. I mean, I'm no longer there. Alpha is no longer my home. Yet often I have the thought that I'll be going there on Sunday, just like I did for those four years of high school. Like nothing ever changed.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Just Did a Christmas Post, Of Course This Should Be a New Years One!
So happy New Years! I mean sure, I'm like three days late for any such statement, but it's still 2012! Welcome to the year of the apocalypse! (as opposed to the past years, which I'm sure no one really thought were apocalyptic in any way)
Well I must say, so far 2012 has brought some wonderful mostly-relaxing evenings with my wonderful roommates. Last night Testa, Shannon and myself watched The Time Travelers Wife on my Mac-shift TV (haha, get it?), and while the movie was not so good (okay, I kinda thought it was stupid), I did get some wonderful time with them. Then the movie ended. I guess we just kept looking in the direction of the screen as we were talking after the movie ended, even as it went black. That, it turns out, was how Laura found us when she walked in. Three girls huddled on the couch covered in blankets because we have zero ventilation staring at a black computer screen. This sounds terribly pathetic. It was hilarious.
Also, Rachel doesn't have pants on. And by "doesn't have pants on" I mean she actually has shorts on but she refuses to admit that, and just keeps saying that she doesn't have pants on.
Well I must say, so far 2012 has brought some wonderful mostly-relaxing evenings with my wonderful roommates. Last night Testa, Shannon and myself watched The Time Travelers Wife on my Mac-shift TV (haha, get it?), and while the movie was not so good (okay, I kinda thought it was stupid), I did get some wonderful time with them. Then the movie ended. I guess we just kept looking in the direction of the screen as we were talking after the movie ended, even as it went black. That, it turns out, was how Laura found us when she walked in. Three girls huddled on the couch covered in blankets because we have zero ventilation staring at a black computer screen. This sounds terribly pathetic. It was hilarious.
Also, Rachel doesn't have pants on. And by "doesn't have pants on" I mean she actually has shorts on but she refuses to admit that, and just keeps saying that she doesn't have pants on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)