I'm Bridge Over Troubled Water!

Which Simon and Garfunkel album are you?

you'll be aight...




One of my friend from high school posted this phrase as her away message this morning. I, as a compulsive away message checker, read it, even though we have not kept in contact since high school. and it struck a chord with me, no idea why. I think I'm hyper-emotional or something.

No matter what shit you have to go through or put yourself through in life, somewhere, you have to believe that "you'll be aight."

Corny? Cliche? True?

Whenever I see the first name of a doctor I am sending a letter to at work, I am shocked when the doctor ends up being a woman.

Even though I am a feminist and my doctor is a woman and always has been.

Proof that we still live in a patriarchal society? According to my American Rhetoric class: yes.

Answer me this: What's the use of stories that aren't even true?

I've been reading the fantastic young adult book Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie for the past three months. It was originally assigned to me by my Kiddie Lit Club, where we read a children's book of the group's choosing every month. I sort of dropped the ball on the due date, but was very interested in reading the book.

I finally finished Haroun this past weekend in my basement abode up north. It was a delightful tale of adventure, creativity, family bonds and above all: the art of story-telling. The entire tale was an allegory for Rushdie's life as an author in the censored Middle East. He wrote it for his son, from whom he had been separated as a political prisoner. It was very heart-warming and despite everything, hilarious.

The above is a quote from the book that popped up every once in awhile and was a constant theme in the book. The book was a fantastical tale that of course wasn't all true, so why would this phrase be in there? To affirm that stories are worthwhile.

Being someone who wants to get involved in the publishing business and is still wide-eyed and idealistic about the entire process, I think that literature, stories, and the telling and re-telling of these important tales (in any and every language) is the essence of being human.

Without creativity, what are we?
Without passion, without art, without SOUL, what ARE we?

HEL LOOKS

http://www.hel-looks.com/

This is a fun website. I love Nordic lifestyles...and getting a glimpse into what people in Finland do and wear is fascinating. I hope to go there next summer (08) when I'm traveling around Europe. Berlin and Helsinki are supposedly some of the greatest cities to shop in for "scene" style.

So far my MUST DO list while studying abroad in france is:

1. Go Skiing in the Alps
2. Never speak in English except to parents on the phone
3. Have sex with a hot french guy (hopefully a lot)
4. Get a mod french haircut in Paris (really short), dye it black or red
5. Swim in the Mediterranean
6. Go to the D-Day beaches
7. Take an Italian or Swedish or Greek or Russian language class
8. Go clubbing with French young people
9. Write poetry in french about france
10. Buy lots of foreign language music and movies
11. Go to every art museum that's near me at any given time
12. Discover the local music scene
13. Get my parents to come to France and show them around the wine country
14. Go to Italy (visit Whitney?)
15. Go to Germany (visit Robby/Jeannie?)
16. Go to Switzerland
17. Go to Sweden, Norway, and Finland
18. Go to Spain
19. Stop in England on the way home
20. Stop in Iceland on the way home
21. Take pictures of everything
22. Become fluent in textbook french, learn the local slang
23. Learn at least 1 new language
24. Love it the whole time

Remember: "Jesus is the reason for the season"


This Christmas season, my family received an abundance of christmas cards from all of the estranged family and friends in my parent's lives. It's odd to me that we receive so many Christmas cards when we don't send one out ourselves (I could say it's because we're all busy, or because we aren't really religious, but the fact is, none of us have exciting things going on that we feel the need to share our lives with people across the nation).

I particularly enjoy going through these cards and reading the extra personal messages that people write in them. Most I have never met, some I haven't even seen pictures of, so it's like opening a book to a middle chapter and reading a snippet of the text with no idea what the rest of the plot is like. Some of the cards are from people that are friends with my grandfather and want to "check in" with my mom to make sure she is praying for his health and remind her that they are praying for him and for our family. I'm not sure if my mother prays or not, but I do know that she believes in praying.

Reading these cards made me wonder what I would write in a Christmas card if I were so inclined to write one. Who would I send it to? Would it include phrases like "Peace on Earth", "God Bless You and Your Family this Holiday Season", or "Happy Holidays from Ours to Yours"? Would it include a awkwardly posed family portrait, us in front of our fake Christmas tree, or our new house? Going along with the tone of Christmas cards, mine would say something along these lines:

Dearest Friends:

We hope this card reaches you in good health, spirits, and company this holiday season.

With the Christmas hustle and bustle, we have taken time to reflect on our past year. We are so thankful to still have Marvin in our lives, he is still plugging along as resilient as ever and has found himself in an assisted living facility that he finds very comfortable. Lila is living with him and is scheduled to meet with a cardiologist about her heart after the holiday season. We are blessed to still have the two in our lives.

The eldest graduated from the University of Michigan this past year and finds himself in Chicago with a job that he loves and allows him to sample fine cuisine and life lessons.

We have recently finished work on the house up north and spend as much time as possible up there. It is very nice this time of year, although we wish for more snow!

Our youngest has been searching for fulfillment and recently taken up the post as a Ski Instructor which she is due to start after the holidays. She has been doing very well in school.

All of our best and remember that our thoughts are with you.



If I could write it I would say:

Dear Friends and Family I have never met before:

I hope you are well, and please send me pictures so I can put a face to a Christmas card. If you want, you can facebook me so we can keep in closer contact.

Our family is still plugging along, although the nucleus has begun to unravel.
The eldest has recently graduated from a life of endless partying and unmeaningful, arduous, and long relationships and moved on to a life of loneliness, self-reliance, and endless binge solo drinking in Chicago. He is fortunate to be getting a taste of "snooty-tooty" life we had not been able to offer him before. He is using this increase in status to smoke fine cigars and drink lots and lots of expensive liquor. He still falls back into the arms of conniving girls that use him for location and sexual comfort.

The mother has unfortunately refused to quit smoking, and reached a crossroads in her career, only to settle for what she already had. She spends her days playing TextTwist online, looking at pictures of dogs, and quilting.

The father has continued to be stressed out, but finds release in going up north, taking sleeping pills with a glass of wine every night, and sleeping on the couch with the TV on. He spends his time buying wine, watching football, and analyzing other people's lives to escape his own grievances.

Then we reach the daughter, who has continued to cause grief and turmoil within the family. They family continues to baby her and protect her from "real-life" problems such as death, leaving her feeling empty and anxious. She continues to have trouble establishing lasting relationships and fixes her problems by moving, moving, moving, and moving again. She is doing well in school for absolutely no reason, and has little to no interest in future plans. She spends her days feeling sleep deprived, worrying, crocheting scarves, and getting coughed on by little kids.

We hope that you have a good Holiday Season, whoever you are, and please don't die anytime soon.

And, of course, remember: Jesus is the Reason for the Season.

With Love from ours to yours....

I'm still trying to think of better things to do with this blog than sit around and whine.

I could discuss how evil Apple is for making shitty products like the iPod that suck people into a mass consumerism culture, make them totally reliant upon the technology only for it to die after a little more than a year (which is when the warranty ends) so they can either go back to carrying around buckets of CDs or spend another 300 dollars.
After an excrutiating two months without my iPod, I've decided to buy a new one. Goodbye Sky Harbor...

(shit that was whining)

Or I could talk about my new job....
Being a ski instructor is definitely a new and completely foreign experience for me. Every day I am overwhelmed by my decision to take this job that takes me three hours away from what I know and find comfortable every single weekend only to plop me back there and expect everything to be the same. I can't decide if this job will be incredibly good for me...or if it will make established relationships fade. Of course it will prevent any new relationships from forming. This is troublesome when I think of my living situation for next semester. At least I'll be closer to my highschool friends and can fall back on my crutch at any time mon-thurs.

I also have so much responsibility at this job. I think it will really help me grow up emotionally. I have to be the caregiver of these kids and also I have to be their teacher. Me...someone's teacher. HA. At least I'm teaching the thing that I'm irrefutably good at. And apparently some people like me because they give me generous tips. It's a very hard transition, a very demanding job, and very draining with the long drives and constant moving and energy that the job require. I will not let it make my grades suffer. It's also a hard transition because the people I work with are so different from me, and not in easily recognizable ways that you find in college. A lot of people have no ambition beyond this job, while I am using it as a stepping stone to get away from home and learn about the world. So, most are vastly older than me, or they are high school students from the area. (So much for finding a beautiful skiing boyfriend ;))

A stepping stone, yes, but a stepping stone that will ruin my current life? We will see.

I am sooooo done with all that HIGH SCHOOL BULLSHIT I put up with and helped create/linger over there.

Hello new college experience.

My stress level has gone waaay down in a matter of hours, my entire body no longer hurts from anger, frustration, depression, and I never have to see those people again if I don't want to!

...only down side I left all of my clean clothes there and am stuck with dirty everything (except undies!) until thursday when I can get the rest of my shit and my washer at home in fixed.


moving on.

To Do

http://www.todolistblog.blogspot.com/

blogs like this make me want to do something with my blog that's more than just bitching. I think I'm going to start taking pictures of the birthday cards I make for people. People always really like them, and they are usually creative.