17 April 2008

How to fix a broken Slade this summer

I feel that I've been emotionally dishonest with myself and the world. I've worked myself like a forastero Indian at Potosi for the last four years, and although I've done a lot of cool stuff, I feel like I've cheated myself out of a lot of emotional growth. I haven't focused on my writing in years. I haven't taken an art class or touched wet clay since sophomore fall. I'm drained from Jordan. I'm drained from getting back on the grindstone this semester, even though the last few months should not, on paper, have been so hard. I'm utterly spent trying to pull more energy, more time, more caring, more anything out of myself to feed into a system I think is innately craven, dehumanizing, hope-crushing, and stultifying. I still can't believe I'm graduating, not only because it's been so long I can't believe it's already here, but also because there is a large part of me that knows I'm a sellout for finishing my time on the system's terms instead of tunnelling out when I could.

So I'm coming up with a plan. It's a plan for a fresh-out-of-college adventure in replanting myself in reality and rejuvenating/rebuilding from years of partially self-imposed exploitation. I made a list like this for myself last year around this time, and it went pretty well (1.5 goals met out of 3, by my reckoning*). I want to make this list public in kind of the same vein as an alcoholic coming out so that everyone knows to expect her to be a bit fucked up for awhile.

Therefore, my big, fun, and scary adventures for the summer are:
1. Insofar as possible, read only books/comics/etc. that I actually have a strong personal desire to read. And get them from the library. Lots of them.
2. Clean, organize, and paint my bedroom at home.
3. Make a fairly rigorous writing regimen that I can stick to.
3a. And make a glorious start into the Goddamn Nordic Hero Novel.
4. If I don't have some stonecut future and summer employment set up by June, get some of each.
5. Make myself a decent website. (Dan, I'll probably be in touch. [grins])
6. Sell off as many useless old textbooks as possible. Donate the rest.

There. I think that's excellent signposting.

*Jordan was supposed to be my semester off and doing NaNo was dependent on my taking real time then for my writing, instead of having this boyfriend and spending three months playing video games and mooching around in the Middle East. So half a point off each of those goals. And I definitely learned to sail, so that makes 1.5 goals accomplished, which isn't bad when really 2.5 were dependent on No. 1.

01 April 2008

I CAN HAZ SPRING!

It seems to be my destiny only to update on minor or national holidays.

Here in Indiana, this is the second consecutive day of truly beautiful, warmish weather. It's in the mid-60's* for gods' sakes! And the forecast says it won't drop more than a couple degrees below 50 all the rest of the week.

THAT MEANS IT'S SPRING!

And the groundhog lied; this is the 9th week since he saw his shadow. I'm wearing a T-shirt, the window is open, I'm contemplating getting an ice cream tonight and actually taking it outside the building, and the last thing I really want to do is start my first draft of my research paper, which is due later this week and really must be begun today. And after that I read Kannani and the Document of Flames for East Asia and, more awesomely, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Of Love and Other Demons for Colonial Latin America. And write papers on both of them. Then, another exam and two short papers for US Since 1877, an exam in Latin America, some more random reading quizzes in US, my Seminar paper presentation, and then finals, and then nothing for a few days, and then I walk graduation, and then I have a month taking two summer classes (Psych 101 and Geography of the Non-Western World, both of them easy), and then I am finished with School forever and ever, amen.

I can smell the end. It's wonderful.

*That's almost 19 degrees for anyone from a metric country reading this. Isn't that crazy?!