Currently Viva La Vida By Coldplay Lost see related

Up and other ponderings

Currently Expect The Impossible By Stellar Kart see related

obsession?

One night while I was working at the Writing Center, my friend Aureli came in, bearing an eight-page research paper she’d written for the class we were taking together: Shakespeare 442. As I reached the edge of the paper, I asked her about a particular set of confusing sentences, and after we’d corrected it, Aureli sighed. “I hate this type of writing,” she confessed to me. “I’d much rather be writing stories. I’m much more of a novelist than a journalist.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Me too. And you’d make a great novelist. I love the imagery and description in your paper.”

“I’m taking Creative Writing from Pyke next semester,” said Aureli, her eyes sparkling. “Hey, you should take it too! It’d be fun!”

“I can’t,” I said glumly. “I’ll be in my last semester of nursing. They won’t let us take anything else besides our core nursing classes because . . .”

“I know, I know; my roommate is a nursing major,” said Aureli. “That’s too bad. Maybe you could petition.”

“Maybe,” I replied doubtfully.

The truth was, the idea of taking another class had crossed my mind before. I so badly wanted to have something in my already over-loaded schedule that wasn’t nursing related that I would do anything—anything—to make it happen. But everyone I had spoken to so far had been unanimous in their agreement—I couldn’t take another class. It simply wasn’t possible, the reason being that the first two weeks of the semester were packed with both classes and six twelve-hour clinicals, and during the last two weeks of school, nursing majors had class form eight to five every day. No non-nursing teacher would allow a student to skip every class for the final two weeks before exams.

But I figured it was worth a try.

On Friday after American History class, I ventured down the fairly deserted hall where the English teachers spent their eighty-hour work weeks. To my surprise, Mrs. Pyke was in her office. I timidly knocked.

“Hello, Elisa,” she greeted me, almost as if she’d known I was coming.

“Hi,” I said, a bit unnerved as I stepped into the small office. “I’m here to ask you about one of your classes next semester.”

She nodded at me to continue. “I’d like to take your creative writing class,” I said quickly. “But the problem is that I’m going to be in level four nursing classes, and while I don’t think I’ll have clinicals on Tuesday or Thursday. I’m worried that I’d have to miss class sometimes, especially because of the nursing seminar at the end of the semester, but I really want to take the class because I’m interested in creative writing . . .”

“I know,” she said. I stopped, unnerved, realizing that I’d been babbling.

Mrs. Pyke continued. “I would be happy to work with you around your schedule.”

I gaped at her. “Really?” I hadn’t thought it’d been this easy.

“Of course,” she said.

“Thank you,” I exclaimed, elated. “Thank you so, so much! You don’t know what this means to me!”

I was babbling again. Quickly I excused myself and practically skipped back to the dormitory (except that I didn’t skip, because of the blisters on my feet, but that’s beside the point). Something that I hadn’t thought possible had just become so. I was filled with sudden, unexplainable hope.

The afternoon was long and dreary as I slaved over my research paper due on Monday. This was going to take me a very long time. My roommate was gone for the weekend and I was beginning to feel as if I were in a cage, unable to get out. I turned on Linkin Park: my ‘depressed’ music. Around seven thirty I decided that it’d be stupid of me not to go to vespers when I had no reason whatsoever to skip, so I called up a friend who said I could tag along with her.

It really was tagging along, though. She sat next to a guy she liked, and I felt very alone and invisible. Vespers seemed to drag on and on; the speaker was talking about purity and pornography and other things I can’t remember. The hands on my watch seemed to have stopped moving. I felt down, lower perhaps than I’d felt in a long time. Like a huge weight was crushing me into my seat. I put my head in my hands and rubbed my forehead, trying to stop the pressure, but nothing was working.

I had no reason to feel like this. I was perfectly fine. I didn’t even mind the research paper I was writing! It was Shakespeare, after all, and I was enjoying researching King Lear. Why was this happening?

Then I thought of the creative writing class I hoped to take the next semester. Instantly, everything changed. The church seemed brighter. I sat up straighter, marveling at how quickly the crushing weight had vanished. The pressure in my head was gone. I blinked, feeling almost as if I’d just woken up from a very long sleep. Had all this happened because I’d thought of one little English class? How was that possible?

But the words ‘creative writing’ had somehow been enough to illuminate the darkness. It was like seeing a pinprick of light in the blackness of a cold, damp cave.

Strange.

It was amazing how one class that most people would detest was enough to ignite a flame of hope in me.

Am I being over-dramatic?

Perhaps. But I’m not the only English-loving student on campus to be excited about a class. A long-standing joke at the Writing Center is that you know you could work there if you one to get excited about Negron’s upper division Grammar and Linguistics class. It’s not often that you find people who are absolutely passionate about grammar and punctuation and proper MLA formatting, but we are. We aren’t trying to be the grammar police. We’re trying to improve writing all around. To us, commas and apostrophes are important. To us, a paper is not just something we turn in to gain points. It is an expression of our thoughts and feelings, a way that we can be heard, even if it is only by an audience composed of the reader and a teacher. To us, a class can mean everything. It is a step forward in our writing career, a learning opportunity.

Yeah, I’m being over-dramatic.

I’ll get off my soap box now and do my homework.

Currently Hilary Duff By Hilary Duff Underneath this Smile see related

Fake a smile.

Currently Listening Minutes to Midnight By Linkin Park see related

Numb

The distant horn of the train echoing through the still night was reassuring to me. I stopped what I was doing, leaned back on the soft cushions, and rested my burning eyes as the horn blew three times. Then came the distant clattering of the wheels on the tracks. I listened until the noise had gone, and I could detect the dinging of the gates raising. I felt my heart rate lower slightly as I concentrated on taking breaths. In, out. In, out. In, out.

I tried to reassure myself, tried to convince my mind that everything would be OK. But it wouldn’t, and the knowing fear ate away at me. A rush of anger. This was all their fault. I was going to fail my first nursing test of the class and it was all their fault. They were to blame.

My rushed evening had been interrupted by an unexpected voicemail from my mother, telling me that she and my father had deemed it necessary to take away the car privileges. I called her immediately, demanding an explanation, but she would give none. I begged. She resisted. I hung up the phone, frustrated, alarmed, and finally, panicked. They wouldn’t even return it to me for work or clinicals!

I stared down at the note cards I’d made, but my mind was anywhere else than fetal heart rhythms. How would I get to work? I had to be off campus four days a week! I couldn’t borrow a car for every one of them. I didn’t have friends with cars—I was the friend with a car. I worked twenty-four hours a week, and more than half of it was off campus, ten plus miles away.

I supposed I could call a cab. Call in favors with friends. Hitchhike. Beg. Plead.

Sell my computer, movies, books, all my belongings, and buy a car.

If I had a car, I’d move out. I swear to god, I’d be gone in 24 hours.  

I was also afraid that they’d discovered I wasn’t their perfect little girl any more. Couldn’t they understand that OHA had stripped away every bit of cushioning and comfort from my life, had made me feel so intensely, crushingly guilty about the smallest things, that I now believed if I wasn’t “Mrs. Clark” perfect I wasn’t going to heaven? And I knew I couldn’t live up to her standard. I’d never be able to. God knows I’d tried. And tried, and tried. But I couldn’t eat vegan 100% of the time. I couldn’t get up at 4 every morning to read my Bible and pray. And I couldn’t give up writing stories.

Writing was the very center of my existence. The core of my being. The goal on which all others were founded. I was a writer at heart. A good writer. A writer of stories—stories that are not always true. That was where Mrs. Clark and I met our differences. If I was “perfect,” I would never again write a word of fiction. I couldn’t survive like that. Writing was my passion. My fire. My elixir.

I am a fantasist, as Carolyn so deftly put it. Realists see the world for what it is. Pessimists are always negative, optimists are always positive about everything. Fantasists, on the other hand, are in a class of their own. They see the world how they want to see it. They are the writers, the people who can hear a single phrase and instantly have a plotline, an entire story. Other people see a girl arguing with her friend about whether or not to call that guy she went on a date with and think nothing of it. We instantly wonder what her motives are. Does she like him? Is he into her? What if her listening friend likes the guy as well but is saying nothing in painful silence in order to promote her companion’s happiness? What if the guy was gay and only dating a girl to hide his true self from his critical friends? Where did they go on that first date? What was said? Did they kiss? Is she not calling him back because she is scared? Angry? Reluctant? Bitter? An idea can pop into my head at any hour of the day or night. A key word, a phrase, a picture, a face. In a word, inspiration.

These thoughts troubled me as I lay there, staring numbly at the ceiling of the girls’ dorm lobby. It was nearly four in the morning. I’d come back to my room at roughly ten, tried and failed to study for my nursing test, and finally decided at midnight to try and sleep. But sleep evaded me. I lay awake, tossing and turning, wondering, hoping, praying, worrying about the phone call from my mother. Planning, plotting, tossing away ideas, accepting new ones, about how to get from one job to another. From my previous conversations, I knew that my parents were concerned about gas. If they were so concerned, they would never consent to drive me around all the time! I had so many places I needed to be. It’d never work out. They’d be doubling the gas when they drove me to Hamilton, drove home, and came to get me four hours later.

At two, I’d decided that wasting time was useless, and had gotten up, found my nursing books in the dark, and slipped out of the room. The lobby was deserted. I spread my books out and tried to study.

And that was where I was now.

The thoughts were tumultuous. Anger. Fear. An intense feeling of injustice. Why me? Why this? Why now?

What did they want from me? I was a good student. I kept my grades up to A’s and B’s. I was holding down three jobs. I’d never gotten in trouble. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t do anything illegal. I didn’t sleep around. I didn’t even have a boyfriend, for pity’s sake. None of my friends slacked and skipped classes. We studied during the week, had fun on the weekends. It was as simple as that. I was not the typical “American” college student. I was above that.

I could never live up to their expectations, though.

Couldn’t they see that whatever point they thought I was at, I’d been driven to it? By them. By OHA. By the guilt. The hopelessness. Why didn’t they understand that after OHA, I’d snapped? I couldn’t live the life OHA and God required of me. So why even try to live up to that standard if I was never going to succeed?

My life was better when I didn’t try. I was happy. I wasn’t wracked with guilt anymore. It no longer mattered what I did and what I didn’t do, because it wasn’t going to make a difference in the end. I didn’t have to feel guilty about listening to music, watching movies, wearing makeup, dancing with my friends, eating Taco Bell . . .

Amazingly, I got an A on my nursing test the next morning, even a mere three hours of sleep.

I’m drowning. I’m suffocating, slowly, as the air is being sucked out of me.

Numb by Linkin Park

I'm tired of being what you want me to be,
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don't know what you are expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Every step that I take is another mistake to you

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware,
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can't you see that you're smothering me
Holding too tightly afraid to lose control
Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
And every second I waste is more than I can take

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

And I know I may end up failing too
But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you

I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware,
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Currently Listening The Best Damn Thing By Avril Lavigne see related

Living a Lonely Life...

I’ve decided that there is only one good thing about being lonely.

You can write about it.

Here’s my reasoning: without emotion, anything even the best of writers can put out is just bull crap. Loneliness is an emotion that every human being feels deeply at one point or another, and to be a truly convincing writer, you must lead your audience to believe that you yourself have been through exactly what your characters experience in your story. When you know it, you can write about it.

Which is why so much of my work is just bull crap.

I write romances with plenty of drama and perfect fairy-tale moments, but the truth is that the only guys I’ve ever felt that oh-so-famous “heart flutter” for are either out of my league or already taken.

I live a sad, pathetic life.

OK, now you’re wondering what sparked all of that . . . quite frankly, it was a movie. Sex and the City. I went to see it tonight, and as I watched all the characters find their own happy endings, I wondered whether I’d ever get one myself. That’s the problem with movies—it looks so perfect, so romantic, so dreamy, but I wonder if it ever happens in real life.  

Hopeless cynic? I think not. Rather, I’d like to think of myself as a realist.

Perhaps there is another good thing about loneliness—it makes the opposite so much better.

That is based on the assumption that companionship will eventually find me. I’ve about given up.

 But of course I didn’t mean to get all emotional and sappy—let’s see if I can sum up the last month…

Oh, yeah, I’ve got it! C-R-A-Z-Y.

Finally, June has arrived and life is winding down. I enjoy the more relaxed pace, though I’m becoming bored without a job.

In May, I worked my 120 hours of clinicals (though it was probably more like 135 hrs) at Parkridge Medical Center, and I found that I didn’t mind the hospital setting as much as I thought I did. I learned a lot, and got to do a bunch of cool procedures, including inserting a catheter, drawing blood from a central line, prepping patients for surgery, and inserting an IV. I also got to see a code. It was really cool! They intubated the patient and then shocked him with the defibrillator, just like on Grey’s Anatomy. And then, I got to take care of the guy a few days later on the cardiac floor. Pretty cool!

Immediately after one of my last shifts, I got home, crashed for a few hours, went to town, then came back and climbed in the van for the 10 hour drive to OHA for graduation weekend.

Needless to say, the drive was…well, long. And the tension in our family only grew as the hours progressed; I admit that I didn’t help, but it was the first time I really realised that I can barely relate to them anymore. We’re on completely different planes of life.

OHA was cool; I got to see a bunch of people, including my class (Leilana, Jared, Christin, Caroline, and Michael) and some friends (Kristoff, Kyra, Christina, Christine, Nick, David, Jackie, Paul, Pieter, Alex, and the list could go on forever) and some family (Elani and Evan).

The rules, however, were not cool. They locked the doors at 10:00 on Friday night and 10:30 on Saturday night! Out of spite! I was really ticked off, especially after nearly getting locked out after cleaning up the kitchen in place of my sister. I swear they did it JUST so the alumni couldn’t hang out on Saturday night.

And then, a week later, my family and I packed our bags and headed south; that’s right, to Daytona Beach. It was probably the longest vacation of my life. The sun, the beach, the pool, the shopping? That was great. The cram-packed room, G-rated movies every night, the lack of social life, the boredom, the fact that I shared a bed with my brother and woke up with elbows in my face every night? THAT was not cool.

I did manage to come away with a decent tan and some new clothes (and a few pretty darn good chapters written on my stories), but still, I was so happy to get back to Tennessee!

Well, I was happy until my parents announced that I now had a midnight curfew—EVERY  NIGHT! I get a later curfew at Southern, for goodness’ sake. Even at home, I used to stay out till 3 and they wouldn’t say a thing.

And now, it’s “Where are you going? Who are you hanging out with? When will you be coming home? Are you wearing that? Why are you going there?” It’s impossible to do anything anymore—and believe it or not, I cannot WAIT for school to start again.

But I have had some good times; I went to RIVERBEND last night! I hung out with Ronnie and even got to see Lindsay and Becca there! And MercyMe was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. But of course it was my first concert ever, so I’m inclined to believe that it was like the best thing ever.

Oh, yes. And today, I ran all over town: I applied at Parkridge Valley (mental hospital) for a night job working on the adolescent wing, and then went to Crossings Church on Staniferd Gap Rd. and applied for a baby-sitting job there. And I GOT IT!!!! I’m so thrilled. I have a job, even if it’s only for 12 hours a week—it’s better than nothing.

So now I will end, and I feel as if I should write something extremely profound and moving, but tonight, I’m all out.

Life is complicated—very complicated.