Uuuuhm.
Good news is, I have been writing.
bad news is, I kept forgetting to put it here.
So there is one
giant
post of notes and writing coming up. After this, there will be one final entry for my professor to look over. And then I'll be back to sporadic postings. My friends and I don't really use LJ anymore. We go through spurts. Tumblr's where I'm most active. But. Hmm.
ANYWAY.
Work below the journal cut!
Negative tendencies that people have said about me:
Lazy
Obsessive
Overdramatic
Ugly
Hypocritical
Fat
Never stops talking
Stupid
Overly sensitive/overemotional
Aggressive
Weird
Slow
Fangirly (uuugh)
Stubborn
Obnoxious
I have no life
Close-minded
Too opinionated
What are nice things people say about me?:
Kind
Caring
Have a nice smile
Have nice eyes
Dependable
Look like Kat Dennings (WHY. I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND she’s so pretty and I am nowhere near that amazing ;-; )
Strong writer
Affectionate
Pick one of these qualities and write about them:
“You really need to get out of your room more,” I’ve been instructed repeatedly. Guess who it always comes from? If you guessed my parents, you’re wrong. It’s a girl who continually knocks at my door, popping in. And every time, she makes a pass at how I hardly leave my room in my free time. “There are so many events on campus. I know you have friends. Why not get out? You’re always in here.” Thank you. I always grit my teeth, jaw locking into place. Inhale, count to seven, exhale - all quiet. If I wanted to be mothered, I’d fucking call my Mum. But not even she continuously tells me to leave (“If it allows you to de-stress, then you should do what makes you happy,” she says when I uneasily express my doubts). This all takes the span of about thirty seconds, then I smile and give a passing excuse as to how tired I am (and, usually, I really am).
There are so many implications with that statement: “You should get out more.” Do you just have no friends? There’s so much out there, go make something of it (of yourself). You’re not going to get anywhere unless you have a job and five internships and you spend all your free time in the soup kitchen. You have no life, if you prefer to sit here with your books (comics, anthologies, and novels thankyouverymuch), your computer (chock-full of TV shows and movies), and your videogames (which take an entire shelf, stacked horizontally to give me more room so I can fit them all - and even then, some sit behind my TV).
After this girl leaves, I wonder what she’s thinking as I try to clamp a lid on my frustration. Maybe she thinks she’s helping me - that yes, I have mild depression and an anxiety disorder - and medication just won’t cut it. Maybe I just need that extra push to get out and take those few steps before I go leaping off that metaphorical cliff and grow wings and soar. Or something. But it doesn’t help. It’s never helped. It’s always been an attack, to me. “You should get out more.” You have no life. You should be partying and hanging out with groups of people. You shouldn’t sit alone in your room.
I haven’t always spent all my free time chilling out in my room. Up until That Incident Which I Always Inevitably Return To, I was a pretty social person. The first half of freshman year, I’d be out until two in the morning on school nights - no drinking or drugs, just sitting in the poetry garden, playing music and laughing with friends.
A list of skills:
Play flute
Good listener I guess?
Read fast
Speak a bit of Spanish
Write
Bake
Ride trains well
Retain personal information
Weirdly high alcohol tolerance
How did you get the skill? Reading (later write about the alcohol tolerance, since I feel like I shoved my foot in my mouth with that one)
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been reading. Kindergarden, I climbed to the top of the reading group. After lights-out, I would take my plastic lantern (actually used for casting stars on my ceiling, but if you pulled up in the middle, it functioned as a light) and tiptoe over to my bookshelf. I didn’t realize my room was over the little-used dining room and not the family room where my parents sat and watched TV together. I became adept at avoiding all the little places my floor would groan and squeak, not knowing the only things I’d be disturbing on the floor below were the nice dinner plates and Mom’s Christmas cookie tray. Tiny hands - still big for a girl my age, but tiny nevertheless - ran over titles until I found one I really liked. Most of the spines were cracked and worn - dearly loved.
Connection to anything in the national news…?
Nnnnope.
When you were younger (a couple years back to childhood, whichever), which science/mathematical subjects interested you?
Astronomy
Oceanlife
Geology
Psychology, if it counts as a hard “science”
Dinosauurrrssss.
…yyyyyyep.
1. How would you go about developing it?
2. What would make it interesting to people outside the field?
Do some research on the history of spaceflight - old conceptions about space, either through science or pop culture (i.e. old hypothesis, and say, Star Trek’s interpretation of space flight). Develop that through the times - how these perceptions have changed due to the scientific discoveries.
Space is something people are widely curious about, due to our limited knowledge of what’s out there. The science for quick spacetravel seems so far away - maybe, if I find something that proves otherwise, bring it up? These things pop up in the news every once in a while, but some important things are just brushed upon, or oversensationalized to the point where people don’t believe it that much.
Talk about how it’s not just scientists that can be curious about this - up north, looking at the stars. My interest of space is almost entirely based off of those late night moments, where stars peppered the sky as far as I could see, or when the moon was close and giant and an off-color gold, almost; or seeing the traces of the Milky Way galaxy; or seeing a meteor shower. Interest doesn’t have to stem from a purely scientific interests - it can also be the writer and the dreamer who thinks they were born far too early. The person who knows they couldn’t be an astronaut, but, in the future, could easily be a tourist.
_________________
Memoir
Exploration
Evocation
Memory as subject
_________________
10 Things in Your Life That You Don’t Know (unanswered questions)
Places and times in your life that are gone
old Rainy
Andreana’s old house
Being good friends with Cristin
________________
Write about your memory, and how it works.
My memory is very closely tied to my emotional state. I tend to remember things that have made an emotional impact on me. My passion is writing, therefore I remember more about books and authors than I do math or science. If someone has a big impact on me or is an inspiration, I usually remember the little details I pick up about them, simply to remind myself that they’re people too. It’s why I get so attached to fictional characters: They tend to have the most emotional impact on me.
When I remember something, usually it’s a phrase or an image. Sometimes it plays out, if it’s a really vivid memory, but most of the time, it’s a little snapshot. When I remember the old Rainy, for example, it’s more of a series of images, and a few videos - little things, that were important to me at the time: How Dad went into town, and I went fishing, and ended up getting a hook in my thumb, or how scared I was when there was a tornado (Dad had a flashlight set up, and we sat on the futon, him curled protectively around me, asking me to read my books to him aloud. I don’t think he could’ve cared less about the series - something about a cook who made people fall in love via her frosted heart cookies - but he wanted to keep me calm).
Or, when I remember Dad’s death - I remember the sheer, heart-stopping terror, and the numbness that crept in, letting me know he wasn’t coming back, even though I tried so hard to hope that he was. I get certain images: Me screaming “Daddy,” and realizing how small I sounded, me taking Mom’s keys so she wouldn’t drive to the hospital, calling my uncle repeatedly, hoping he’d get there, pacing in the living room, begging anything out there not to take him.
________________
Write down a few rituals you/your family has:
= Going up north every summer (taste - alcohol or cold soda. Feels like warm sun, sand under my feet, sitting in front of the fan, flipping pages of a book, settling underneath the covers. Smells like campfire smoke)
= Alternating Christmas/Thanksgiving with Mom’s family and Dad’s
= Christmas cookies/bread every year - mum and myself
= Dad put up Christmas lights every year
= After mum comes home, she gets food and sits to watch tv and unwind
= Dad hunted deer every single year
= Entering/leaving the new house up north - hop up onto the fireplace to kiss the box that has Dad’s ashes in them and tell him I love him (feels - box is smooth, mantleplace stone is cool. Wood smells fresh. Hear my thumb snick a little over the design of the deer on the front.)
= Get in my car - run my thumb over the “guardian angels” family gave me, and say the words on them quietly
= Play Bob Seger on a road trip
How did one of the rituals change?
- Christmas at Nana’s sophomore year of high school. Got the stomach flu - went to intensive care, had to get an IV.
- Oklahoma for 4th of July one year to go to the Dutton family reunion
How would you describe this change? How did it affect the ritual?
Christmas @ Nana’s. Usually dinner there, opening gifts afterwards (go around in a circle). Zach and I wander off to play games and talk. Mum, Dad, Nana, and Aunt Sherri go in the garage to smoke and drink. I stay at Nana’s.
Christmas day, Mum and Dad come over from the hotel and we open gifts. We eat Grandma’s coffee cake and go to town on the gifts, then usually spend the rest of the day hanging around.
When we leave, Mom and Dad come over to wake me up - I’m expected to have packed the night before. They eat while I sleepily gather my stuff together, then wander out at eat. Lots of big hugs for Nana and a hesitation to climb in the truck.
When I was sick, it mainly affected the day we left. Nana’d had the stomach virus before we got there. I stayed at her house, as usual - the remnants of it got into my system the night before we were going to leave. I woke up at 2 and threw up. I woke up Nana once, she got me a water and some stomach medicine, and we both went back to bed. I threw it up a half hour later, and drifted in and out of consciousness, waking up to run to the bathroom and heave. Finally, at 6, I called my parents. They checked out and rushed over as fast as they could.
Dad tried to get me to nibble on some crackers - I did so and threw up 45 minutes later, as they were talking about what to do. Mum and Dad packed my stuff up while Nana looked up an intensive care clinic that was open. We went there, and sat in the waiting room, everything loaded in the car. I had to throw up again, so Dad and I headed to the bathroom. I was dizzy, delirious, and out of my mind since I was so dehydrated. A doctor caught us going back to the waiting room, then when he saw my condition, he steered me over to a bed. All I remember is a pricking in my arm, and finally passing out. I woke up with Mum and Dad next to me. They told me I had an IV when I want to scratch the itchy, pained part in my arm, then redirected my hand and told me to go back to sleep.
bad news is, I kept forgetting to put it here.
So there is one
giant
post of notes and writing coming up. After this, there will be one final entry for my professor to look over. And then I'll be back to sporadic postings. My friends and I don't really use LJ anymore. We go through spurts. Tumblr's where I'm most active. But. Hmm.
ANYWAY.
Work below the journal cut!
Negative tendencies that people have said about me:
Lazy
Obsessive
Overdramatic
Ugly
Hypocritical
Fat
Never stops talking
Stupid
Overly sensitive/overemotional
Aggressive
Weird
Slow
Fangirly (uuugh)
Stubborn
Obnoxious
I have no life
Close-minded
Too opinionated
What are nice things people say about me?:
Kind
Caring
Have a nice smile
Have nice eyes
Dependable
Look like Kat Dennings (WHY. I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND she’s so pretty and I am nowhere near that amazing ;-; )
Strong writer
Affectionate
Pick one of these qualities and write about them:
“You really need to get out of your room more,” I’ve been instructed repeatedly. Guess who it always comes from? If you guessed my parents, you’re wrong. It’s a girl who continually knocks at my door, popping in. And every time, she makes a pass at how I hardly leave my room in my free time. “There are so many events on campus. I know you have friends. Why not get out? You’re always in here.” Thank you. I always grit my teeth, jaw locking into place. Inhale, count to seven, exhale - all quiet. If I wanted to be mothered, I’d fucking call my Mum. But not even she continuously tells me to leave (“If it allows you to de-stress, then you should do what makes you happy,” she says when I uneasily express my doubts). This all takes the span of about thirty seconds, then I smile and give a passing excuse as to how tired I am (and, usually, I really am).
There are so many implications with that statement: “You should get out more.” Do you just have no friends? There’s so much out there, go make something of it (of yourself). You’re not going to get anywhere unless you have a job and five internships and you spend all your free time in the soup kitchen. You have no life, if you prefer to sit here with your books (comics, anthologies, and novels thankyouverymuch), your computer (chock-full of TV shows and movies), and your videogames (which take an entire shelf, stacked horizontally to give me more room so I can fit them all - and even then, some sit behind my TV).
After this girl leaves, I wonder what she’s thinking as I try to clamp a lid on my frustration. Maybe she thinks she’s helping me - that yes, I have mild depression and an anxiety disorder - and medication just won’t cut it. Maybe I just need that extra push to get out and take those few steps before I go leaping off that metaphorical cliff and grow wings and soar. Or something. But it doesn’t help. It’s never helped. It’s always been an attack, to me. “You should get out more.” You have no life. You should be partying and hanging out with groups of people. You shouldn’t sit alone in your room.
I haven’t always spent all my free time chilling out in my room. Up until That Incident Which I Always Inevitably Return To, I was a pretty social person. The first half of freshman year, I’d be out until two in the morning on school nights - no drinking or drugs, just sitting in the poetry garden, playing music and laughing with friends.
A list of skills:
Play flute
Good listener I guess?
Read fast
Speak a bit of Spanish
Write
Bake
Ride trains well
Retain personal information
Weirdly high alcohol tolerance
How did you get the skill? Reading (later write about the alcohol tolerance, since I feel like I shoved my foot in my mouth with that one)
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been reading. Kindergarden, I climbed to the top of the reading group. After lights-out, I would take my plastic lantern (actually used for casting stars on my ceiling, but if you pulled up in the middle, it functioned as a light) and tiptoe over to my bookshelf. I didn’t realize my room was over the little-used dining room and not the family room where my parents sat and watched TV together. I became adept at avoiding all the little places my floor would groan and squeak, not knowing the only things I’d be disturbing on the floor below were the nice dinner plates and Mom’s Christmas cookie tray. Tiny hands - still big for a girl my age, but tiny nevertheless - ran over titles until I found one I really liked. Most of the spines were cracked and worn - dearly loved.
Connection to anything in the national news…?
Nnnnope.
When you were younger (a couple years back to childhood, whichever), which science/mathematical subjects interested you?
Astronomy
Oceanlife
Geology
Psychology, if it counts as a hard “science”
Dinosauurrrssss.
…yyyyyyep.
1. How would you go about developing it?
2. What would make it interesting to people outside the field?
Do some research on the history of spaceflight - old conceptions about space, either through science or pop culture (i.e. old hypothesis, and say, Star Trek’s interpretation of space flight). Develop that through the times - how these perceptions have changed due to the scientific discoveries.
Space is something people are widely curious about, due to our limited knowledge of what’s out there. The science for quick spacetravel seems so far away - maybe, if I find something that proves otherwise, bring it up? These things pop up in the news every once in a while, but some important things are just brushed upon, or oversensationalized to the point where people don’t believe it that much.
Talk about how it’s not just scientists that can be curious about this - up north, looking at the stars. My interest of space is almost entirely based off of those late night moments, where stars peppered the sky as far as I could see, or when the moon was close and giant and an off-color gold, almost; or seeing the traces of the Milky Way galaxy; or seeing a meteor shower. Interest doesn’t have to stem from a purely scientific interests - it can also be the writer and the dreamer who thinks they were born far too early. The person who knows they couldn’t be an astronaut, but, in the future, could easily be a tourist.
_________________
Memoir
Exploration
Evocation
Memory as subject
_________________
10 Things in Your Life That You Don’t Know (unanswered questions)
Places and times in your life that are gone
old Rainy
Andreana’s old house
Being good friends with Cristin
________________
Write about your memory, and how it works.
My memory is very closely tied to my emotional state. I tend to remember things that have made an emotional impact on me. My passion is writing, therefore I remember more about books and authors than I do math or science. If someone has a big impact on me or is an inspiration, I usually remember the little details I pick up about them, simply to remind myself that they’re people too. It’s why I get so attached to fictional characters: They tend to have the most emotional impact on me.
When I remember something, usually it’s a phrase or an image. Sometimes it plays out, if it’s a really vivid memory, but most of the time, it’s a little snapshot. When I remember the old Rainy, for example, it’s more of a series of images, and a few videos - little things, that were important to me at the time: How Dad went into town, and I went fishing, and ended up getting a hook in my thumb, or how scared I was when there was a tornado (Dad had a flashlight set up, and we sat on the futon, him curled protectively around me, asking me to read my books to him aloud. I don’t think he could’ve cared less about the series - something about a cook who made people fall in love via her frosted heart cookies - but he wanted to keep me calm).
Or, when I remember Dad’s death - I remember the sheer, heart-stopping terror, and the numbness that crept in, letting me know he wasn’t coming back, even though I tried so hard to hope that he was. I get certain images: Me screaming “Daddy,” and realizing how small I sounded, me taking Mom’s keys so she wouldn’t drive to the hospital, calling my uncle repeatedly, hoping he’d get there, pacing in the living room, begging anything out there not to take him.
________________
Write down a few rituals you/your family has:
= Going up north every summer (taste - alcohol or cold soda. Feels like warm sun, sand under my feet, sitting in front of the fan, flipping pages of a book, settling underneath the covers. Smells like campfire smoke)
= Alternating Christmas/Thanksgiving with Mom’s family and Dad’s
= Christmas cookies/bread every year - mum and myself
= Dad put up Christmas lights every year
= After mum comes home, she gets food and sits to watch tv and unwind
= Dad hunted deer every single year
= Entering/leaving the new house up north - hop up onto the fireplace to kiss the box that has Dad’s ashes in them and tell him I love him (feels - box is smooth, mantleplace stone is cool. Wood smells fresh. Hear my thumb snick a little over the design of the deer on the front.)
= Get in my car - run my thumb over the “guardian angels” family gave me, and say the words on them quietly
= Play Bob Seger on a road trip
How did one of the rituals change?
- Christmas at Nana’s sophomore year of high school. Got the stomach flu - went to intensive care, had to get an IV.
- Oklahoma for 4th of July one year to go to the Dutton family reunion
How would you describe this change? How did it affect the ritual?
Christmas @ Nana’s. Usually dinner there, opening gifts afterwards (go around in a circle). Zach and I wander off to play games and talk. Mum, Dad, Nana, and Aunt Sherri go in the garage to smoke and drink. I stay at Nana’s.
Christmas day, Mum and Dad come over from the hotel and we open gifts. We eat Grandma’s coffee cake and go to town on the gifts, then usually spend the rest of the day hanging around.
When we leave, Mom and Dad come over to wake me up - I’m expected to have packed the night before. They eat while I sleepily gather my stuff together, then wander out at eat. Lots of big hugs for Nana and a hesitation to climb in the truck.
When I was sick, it mainly affected the day we left. Nana’d had the stomach virus before we got there. I stayed at her house, as usual - the remnants of it got into my system the night before we were going to leave. I woke up at 2 and threw up. I woke up Nana once, she got me a water and some stomach medicine, and we both went back to bed. I threw it up a half hour later, and drifted in and out of consciousness, waking up to run to the bathroom and heave. Finally, at 6, I called my parents. They checked out and rushed over as fast as they could.
Dad tried to get me to nibble on some crackers - I did so and threw up 45 minutes later, as they were talking about what to do. Mum and Dad packed my stuff up while Nana looked up an intensive care clinic that was open. We went there, and sat in the waiting room, everything loaded in the car. I had to throw up again, so Dad and I headed to the bathroom. I was dizzy, delirious, and out of my mind since I was so dehydrated. A doctor caught us going back to the waiting room, then when he saw my condition, he steered me over to a bed. All I remember is a pricking in my arm, and finally passing out. I woke up with Mum and Dad next to me. They told me I had an IV when I want to scratch the itchy, pained part in my arm, then redirected my hand and told me to go back to sleep.