T.S. Eliot

I wish I could spend a semester studying his works and only his works.

Well...

The past 24 hours have been interesting.

Stuff last night. Overslept this morning; woke up, and my first thought was in Spanish (wtf...I'm not even fluent, and I wasn't looking over it before bed); had a bad experience with coffee...who knew such a thing could happen. FYI, don't chug coffee.

My classes went from being decent to fun to wtf-worthy; studied for Econ all evening, and am still thoroughly confused; it looks like I'm abusing the semicolon tonight. Oh well. It gets overlooked too often in writing anyway.

Ani DiFranco is amazing. Go see her live. I took this video at the concert on Saturday (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOpC2LsnITo). Her opening act, Toshi Reagon, was amazing as well. I was very impressed, and I'll definitely go see her next time she's in town.

While flipping thorough my assortment of quotes from literature, I stumbled on this one. It seems apt to end this blog with it (but I think really just want to use the block quote feature),

Every step she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to 'feed upon the opinion' when her own soul had invited her.

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Now playing: Toshi Reagon - One More Today
via FoxyTunes

"You know I never could say anything in 20 words or less."

I just realized that I still don't have a title for this thing. I hate titling; it's always the very last thing I do for papers. I think it's because I have issues summarizing. I feel like I'm belittling whatever it might be - a paper, a blog, or the name of my iPod - with a few measly words. Maybe I'm too wordy, or have too much to say, or a combination of both. I just titled this entry with a rather apt title. I should just start titling everything with that. Johnette Napolitano wouldn't mind too much.

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I watched Dead Poets Society for the first time the other night. Why did I just recently get around to watching it? "Set in 1959 at a conservative and aristocratic boys prep school, it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students to change their lives of conformity through his teaching of poetry and literature. The movie is a modern interpretation of the transcendentalist movement." This IS my life more or less. It's one of many reasons why I read; it's one of many reasons why I want to teach. I know it's just a movie, but things like this give me hope. Hope that maybe most people are better than I give them credit for (that's a topic for a whole other entry. I love people, no really, but I have a much harder time liking them, broadly speaking of course. When we get something right, we truly get it right; when we get something wrong, we can really fuck it up. But like I said, that deserves its own entry). And the movie's Transcendentalist motifs were amazing. I don't think I've heard Thoreau and Whitman quoted and talked about so much, save for in an English class.

First Entry

One of my New Year's resolutions is to start writing more, even if I hate it with a burning passion. I feel like I need to be writing more, so I started this blog in hopes that it’ll help me keep up with this resolution. Ironically, I decided to do my first entry when Google was mysteriously not working; I’m typing it in Word for now.

Speaking of New Year's resolutions, I’m actually going to try my best to do mine this year. I’ll post them here as well; I figure if I’m constantly forced to see them, then I’ll be more likely to keep up with them.

1. Start going to the gym at least twice a week (don't really have much of a choice on this one; gotta get my cholesterol down).

2. Read more.

3. Find a way to get my ass to NYE in Jersey with awesome people.

4. Be more green.

5. Get a job at the campus writing center.

6. Keep making all As.

7. See Tori Amos live again.

8. Write more, even if it never sees the light of day.

There ya are. I think they’re feasible. There are some more, more private ones, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be working towards those with or without a public list.

I’ve been working on a theory of mine regarding The Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. Like most of my creative writings (well, this one is more of an essay, but whatever), it has an amazing introduction, and that’s it. Nothing to follow up or expand on. My creative juices just stop after the introduction. I’m hoping that keeping this blog will remedy that. I really like my introduction, and I’m motivated this time to push through it. Does it need scriptural references? Yes. Am I going to do that in the foreseeable future? Probably not. Citing evidence is cool and all, but some things you just know on your own, without a text to back you up. I know having a text to back you up makes your argument more credible, but did Emerson need MLA citations to back-up his claims? Nope.

I just re-read the above paragraph, and my writing style for non-school assignments sounds so colloquial…and I make too much use of (rhetorical) questions and fragments. Oops. I promise, I can sound like a big girl in my writing.

I’m getting tired, so I suppose this will be the end of this entry.