Day #9107 - 24 Until 25

So I turn 25 in 24 days and as it turns out, this is bringing up a lot of feelings.

Yeah, I'm not wild about it either. I'm actually terrified. The thing about growing up is that it never stops. Well, I mean, yeah it stops when you're dead, but if life-life is stagnet, if you're not growing anymore, then something is wrong.

In a lot of ways, I do feel like this is the right age for me. My interests. My tastes in music and clothes and what my idea of a good time is. I have my own beliefs and opinions that I may not have had a few years ago. I care about different things. I see the world more complexly. I have dreams and goals and desires that my teenage self never would have been able to wrap her head around. They would have seemed to foreign and far away.

Yet, in more ways than I'm entirely comfortable with, I don't feel almost-25 at all. I still feel like wearing high heels means I'm playing dress up. I still don't have a solid understanding of things I think 'grown ups' should like stocks and stuff. (I also frequently still use the word 'stuff' - yeah, I have an English degree and fancy myself a writer.) My friends are getting married and having babies, but it feels like just yesterday we were going to each other's high school graduation parties. Now we talk about car payments and home projects. Instead of going out at 10:00, I consider it a good day when I'm in bed by that time.

So this last month before I hit the quarter-century mark will be a busy one. I've got a lot of emotions I want to sort through, I have to get ready for a new school year to start at the end of August, I have a massive stack of books to read, and I want to make more progress on my own WIP before said school year sucks me in and 'free time' becomes fictional again. Wish me luck, Internet. These 24 days are going to be something else...

Day #9096 - Fortune Cookie Day

Day #8979 - Patience

Oh, Internet. Remember when I used to be a more dependable blogger here? Someone who actually posted with a relatively high level of consistency with entries that weren't all embedded YouTube videos and contained, you know, words and thoughts with substance?

Well spring is here (though it certainly doesn't feel like it here in Chicagoland) and I'm determined to be better about that. New season, fresh start.

So what have I been up to? Quite a lot. There was the Dear Cassie release at the beginning of the month and was fun, but at the same time, after that day came and went, I was left with my usual paralyzing fear that always accompanies my writing. My Amy Pond contest entry is now out in the world, and it's my only writing 'success' to date. While it did give my confidence a boost and I did send out a fresh round of query letters, the responses haven't really changed. Form rejections. Gotta love 'em. Though at least I am developing a thick skin on that front.

I was also lucky enough for my pitch to be selected for Write On Con's Pitch-Fest and I got more feedback from fresh sets of eyes. It was really helpful to get constructive criticism. Unfortunately I queried so many agents with a letter that I now know wasn't the strongest and I still have a ways to go on perfecting my pitch skills. The rational part of me is winning that internal battle, knowing that it's better I learn this sooner rather than later, but there is that dark corner of my brain where the doubts dwell where I spend a lot of time, frustrated that I still can't seem to get this right and what if I'm not meant to ever be a published author?

Patience and practice, though, are the keys to success. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself, though if I'm honest, I haven't done much writing since the Dear Cassie contest as a result of these fears. I keep planning and planning and note taking and there's been a lot of thinking about writing and my story idea.

Just not really so much writing. So this upcoming week while I'm off from work (school district I work for is on spring break), I want to step away from my procrastination-via-planning and actually start writing this project. I'm a planner, not a panster, so I know I won't be too comfortable writing without knowing quite where I'm going for too long, but it's time to get back on the bike so to speak.

There's been a lot of other things filling my days too. Family members and friends announcing engagements and babies on the way and I'm also helping directing a play at my school. But this is the Internet, so you don't get to know everything =P Just believe me when I say there's plenty of good going on too.

So that's enough for one rambling post. Hopefully "next time" will be sooner rather than later =)

Day #8737 - 50 Hours as a Red Head

A video explaining how the other day I was looking to make a change and I ended up getting a little more than I bargained for. By the time my appearance is back to normal, I'll have spent 50 hours as a red head.


And here's a picture because the lighting in the video doesn't quite do it justice:

Day #8685 - Dear 17 Year Old Me

With today being graduation day for the seniors at the high school I work at, I got to thinking about my own high school graduation and what I would tell my seventeen year old self if I could.

Day #8551 - In the Still of the Night

Being a life-long resident of the midwest, I have a complicated relationship with snow. Now I love winter. I love getting to wear layers and hats and scarves, it's hockey season, and it's the one time of year where people don't give me funny looks for being cold (unlike in the summer when I usually wear jeans until temperatures get above 75). Yet I must admit there are things about the snow that I'm less than in love with, mostly automobile related. Nothing says "fun" quite like having a long day at work and then having to scrape off my car and driving five miles per hour to get home, knowing full well I'll be doing the same thing the next morning.

However, at this time of night, I just like to forget that part. The wind and snowfall have stopped, and as I look out my window onto my street, it's bathed in the yellow glow of the streetlights and several inches of powder. The only sounds are my fingers hitting the keys - there aren't any snowblowers or plows out right now and the sky is a beautiful color that my eyes can't get enough of. It's as if the night sky is a deep blue silk and someone has laid a sheer gray tule over it. Regal is the word that comes to mind. The tree out front has looked so sad and barren since it lost its leaves a few months ago, but the branches now feel like they have a purpose again as they are gently covered in a white dusting, bright against the bark.

I like to remember moments like this when I think I hate winter because I couldn't hate this part if I tried.

It gets the creative juices flowing, that's for sure. Summer Novel continues to be a project I love and I've been having fun working with the characters and story in a post-first draft way. Slightly more exciting though is that I spent time this afternoon sketching out a new idea that's been slowly growing in my brain for the last few months. I find that every story I write has come to me in a slightly different fashion. With Summer Novel, the first thing I knew was the setting but it was years before I knew who was in it. With my NaNoWriMo story from last year, I built it around a character who I already knew wasn't the protagonist, but had a huge impact on the protagonist. And now with this one, I've known the characters for quite some time, bits and pieces of information about them have been accumulating in my brain inspired by many different things, but I'm still learning how these people's lives intersect and what their story is. But for the first time, I was able to get a rough sense of where they're taking me, and it's an exciting feeling.

And so, I remember another perk of being overwhelmed by snow on the weekends. No work means no having to scrape my car, which means more time for playing and writing. Keep warm and best wishes!

Day #8535 - My Other Life

Sometimes, being a writer makes me feel like I have multiple personalities or like I'm leading a double life, except that both of my lives are perfectly aware of the other, yet they still fight for my time and attention.

My days are like this: I wake up, go to work, come home, grad school it up, read, blog, write, sleep, repeat. By day, I'm a library teaching assistant, an "adult" in the eyes of the high school students I work with as I help them find books, figure out how to print things, and remind them that it's a library and not a gym. I love working with this age group and I really enjoy the amazing feeling that comes with talking to a teen about the amazing book they just read and seeing their eyes light up when they find something new on the shelves to enjoy.

Then when I come home, I'm the student as I'm about to enter my final semester of graduate school before completing my M.S. in library and information science this May. I have homework of my own. I also have a mile high stack of books I want to read for fun, the blogs I enjoy reading to find out what else is out there and what fellow bibliophiles like me are up to, and then, last but far from least, is my own writing.

I'll admit, Summer Novel (code name as such because I wrote it last summer) is in pretty good shape. I'm afraid of reopening November Novel for the time being, but I do have this brand new, shiny, fabulous idea that's been floating around in my head ever since last fall that I'm itching to start working out. Plus, on top of all of that, I really want to start making something happen with Summer Novel and putting it out into the world, even if it means the plethora of rejection letters that the blogs of published authors have warned me will probably come (but they warn me in the nicest possible way!) The only problem with this fabulous plan is that there aren't always are never enough hours in a day.

Long story short, it comes down to prioritizing and choices. I'm lucky that I've become pretty good at juggling these various personas, and I just remind myself that all of them are vitally important to making me, me. Grad school will end in May. I have nights and weekends. And even if nothing happens with Summer Novel or any of my other stories, it's okay. Despite the fact that I think it would be awesome, wanting to be published isn't the reason I write, nor should it be. I write because it's something I simply need to do, there's no other way to put it.

So to my peers out there, remember, whether or not we have an agent or a contract, we still ARE writers. I have to believe that if it's meant to be, with a lot of hard work and a whole lot of luck, our time will come.

Day #8419 - A Decade Later

I'm hardly original in posting this today. On the anniversary of such a huge event in our nation's history, it does seem like the popular thing to do. But I'm not doing it because it's popular. I'm writing and reflecting on the events of September 11, 2001 because I genuinely feel that it's something I need to do, that it's the absolute least I can do.

For the past week, that day has been a hot topic of conversation at school among the teachers and staff. Where were you? What were you doing? How did you find out? Did you know anyone? Did you lose anyone? It was a day that I think anyone born in 1993 or earlier will always remember.

For me, it was my third or fourth week as an 8th grader at Margaret Mead Jr. High School. I even remember what I was wearing - blue jeans and a shirt from my aunt that she'd just given me for my 13th birthday a few weeks before and it was infinitely more stylish than my usual garb. The weather was gorgeous, and as 8th graders, we felt like we owned the school. Nothing could bring us down.

But of course, that wasn't true. I was at my locker between 2nd and 3rd period when I heard the news. A classmate of mind who was known for having a demented sense of humor and who's biggest goal in life was to be like on of The Soprano's was at his locker a few feet away from and announced that some plane had flown into the World Trade Center. He was laughing while he said it, being pretty theatrical and over the top, so no one really took him seriously.

Once my arms were full of my algebra binder and lunch box, I started to make my way towards the band room where my next hour class was. Instead, I was ushered into my math classroom next door along with many of my other classmates. A TV was set up and turned on and I was horrified to learn that the kid hadn't been joking.

For the next few hours, we sat and watched in a stunned silence. I remember it being very important to our teachers that we not tell the 7th graders what was going on since they were already getting used to a new school - surely this wouldn't make things easier. Eventually, it was decided that the 8th graders needed to get back to their schedules as well, or something close. I spent the rest of the day in my Language Arts teacher's classroom. Ms. Haas, in a day that felt like nothing in the world made sense anymore, asked each of us to do an incredibly sensible thing: write. She didn't tell us to because she thought we'd forget - I think she told us to to ensure that the future would remember.

Here's what I wrote, exactly as I wrote it (except I did correct my many spelling errors):

I am disturbed by today's events in Washington D.C. and New York. This is the first time the continental U.S. has been attacked. I don't see what terrorists think they're proving by flying planes in/through the World Trade Center Twin Towers. I'm scared out of my mind. Was it the people in the Middle East that we bombed a while ago? Was it Saddam Hussein? What possessed them to attack America? I have so many questions and no answers. If the terrorist's goal was to kill people, he did. There were people at the W.T.C. that were jumping out of windows close to the top of the buildings. CNN said that 50,000 people were in the WTC. 24,000 had to be evacuated from the Pentagon because a plane crashed into it. A Representative said that he believes we're at WAR. He said this is 21st century warfare. Up until today, no one from my generation has had to experience war. Who would hate America so much? I think this is the first time since the Oklahoma City Bombing that the school has put its flag at half mast. They are taking action all over the country. I think all government buildings have been shut down. They have even shut Chicago down! CHICAGO!!! The Daley Center downtown I think has been evacuated and closed. The government doesn't want any more people hurt. They even closed Woodfield as a precaution. They basically have closed every place where large groups of people could be. I don't feel safe anymore.

Obviously, that was a lot of fear talking, not to mention that I was only 13 years old and extremely naive about world affairs and what exactly was going on. We've all learned a lot since then, and I finally learned that not everyone in the world is particularly wild about America. I don't like to remember these aspects of 9/11, but I know it's important that I do.

What I choose to focus on is the hundreds and thousands of people around the country who banded together as a result of this. That we took care of each other. That so many people sacrificed themselves that day and have sacrificed themselves since to help and to try to restore that feeling of safety that was ripped from our fingers.

I hope that in the future, people continue to remember all these many aspects of 9/11, but especially its heroes and its victims. It breaks my heart that we don't do the same for Pearl Harbor Day, that every December 7th those men and women are forgotten. They don't deserve that, none of them do. So on this 10th anniversary, we must look back and look forward. It is our job to follow in the footsteps of the people who came before us and showed the absolute best of America in its darkest hour. Lives were lost and our world was changed, and we must remember that so many people became the best versions of themselves to help total strangers. I may not agree with everything in this country, but that is the America I am proud to be a part of.

May God bless us all, and may we never forget.

Day #8174 - West Wing Wisdom

When I find myself in times of trouble, Aaron Sorkin speaks to me through all of his characters on The West Wing

Corny? Yes. True? Actually I think it is in a lot of situations. I know that I've written here many times before about my love of this tv show that was on the air from 1999-2006, but I've recently been rethinking about how given such a diverse group of characters in a high pressure setting actually give quite a bit of commentary about being an ordinary person.

President Bartlett is the one always trying to do the right thing, and sometimes his intense intellect and wisdom make that hard. Put him with Leo McGarry and the two of them often say a lot about how they don't understand popular culture, despite how smart they are or how hard they try. Sam Seaborne is the idealist who more often than not seems to be putting his foot in his mouth despite his good intentions. If Toby Ziegler were a teenager today, I'm almost convinced he'd be a bit emo with the way he refuses to smile too much, acts like he doesn't care about people, and he sincerely wants government and people in power to quit screwing around all the time.

I could go on and on about how each of the many characters on this show have their moments or quirks that make them seem like anybody else, but the two that I think embody this more than anybody is Josh Lyman and his assistant Donna Moss. Donna is the closest to "normal" as any of these people get - it is through her that the writers would be able to clarify various aspects of our government that people outside of it may not know about or understand. She often asks Josh the questions and he'll somehow provide an answer. And as smart as Josh is with his Ivy League education and impressive resume, Donna is often the wiser one when it comes to really understanding people and, despite her own awful dating history, is the one telling Josh how he should navigate his social life. He even admits at one point, "it's like I skipped a year cuz I never learned what you do when you think you like somebody; what you do next." As a fellow braniac who has spent most of her life doing homework and studying, I can empathize with him. Donna's attitude says it all - there are different ways of being smart, and eventually, hopefully, we'll all figure out what it is we're supposed to do next.

Day #8165 - Another Year Ends

I don't really know why, but it seems like the general consensus is that people are more than fine with seeing 2010 come to an end. I suppose that overall I would be part of that faction as well. Now don't get me wrong- I am incredibly aware and grateful for the many blessings I have had this year, but I'm also feeling very good about keeping my eyes forward for what 2011 has in store for me. So now, without further adieu, I'll be doing a quick look at 2010's many events in my life.

January - Along with a new year, January brought the start of my adventures in student teaching at Hersey High School. Little did I realize how much my sophomores and seniors would come to change my life over the next few months, in many ways for the better.

February - My 21 1/2 birthday and a trip to the Chicago Auto Show on Single Awareness Day.

March - Spring break road trip to St. Louis with Gail was full of fun times. When I got home, Addison Lynn Rae Fumarolo , a Maltese-Poodle mix, joined our family.

April - Right now, nothing is jumping out about April. I assume it's because I was probably up to my eyeballs in grading and lesson plans.

May - I find myself sad to be saying goodbye to my students and my role as their teacher, but am excited to graduate from college! BA in English, minor in secondary school teaching, and countless memories.

June - An event 49 years in the making, the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in overtime during game 6. The sounds of "Chelsea Dagger" filled the air as the cup made its way around. I got to see it for myself in the Elk Grove parade.

July - My adventures in graduate school begin as I start my 2 year journey towards a masters degree with a 10 day class/bootcamp on campus in Champaign, IL. The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the #1 program in the US and has an online program that I'm proud to be a part of.

August - My dad's side of the family takes a memorable vacation to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas aka Hotlantis. Also, I turned 22.

September - Into my first full semester of grad school with a full time course load, I ran the Blackhawks Training Camp 5k and possibly maxed out on my limited athletic ability for the year. But it was so much fun to hang out with friends and the shirts were great!

October - Made my way down to the UC for my classes' on-campus weekend. Fun times with friends and acting like a 22 year old with a social life was great. Not to mention the quack attack was back as I reprised my Charlie Conway Halloween costume for the 2nd year in a row.

November - Fall break and the holiday season finally arrive and with much hard work and dedication, I regain the ability to touch my toes. The final Harry Potter movie part 1 comes out and blows my mind (along with the trailer for Cowboys and Aliens).

December - Semester 1 is complete and a complete success! Finish my final projects, spend time with family and friends, and my first Blackhawks game cap off the year. To my delight, we had a white Christmas and got to see the lights downtown.

And there you have it! My year certainly had more going on than that, but these are some of the things that seem to stand out as I look back. So here's wishing everyone out there a very happy new year in 2011. Be safe, be positive, and may nothing but good things come your way. :o)

Day #8137 - Losing a Legend

Two years ago for spring break, my family and I went out to Arizona for vacation. We'd visited a lot of National Parks in years past, but had never yet made it to the Grand Canyon and my dad wanted to make sure me and my brother both got the chance to experience it. It truly was a beautiful sight, but in all honesty, it wasn't what I had been looking forward to the most before we flew west. Because in addition to going to the Grand Canyon, we were also going to Mesa, Arizona - Spring Training Home of the Chicago Cubs.

I still have the baseball I brought to the park that day sitting in a display box on my desk. I don't really know the names of all the players who signed it - their handwriting is illegible and the only one I know for sure is Canadian pitcher Ryan Demptster, my current favorite player if I had to pick one. But his name is scrawled on the side of the ball. The place of honor between the seams facing the top of the box so I can always see it is Ron Santo's autograph.

I can remember the day easily. People were scattered all around the park, holding out baseballs, posters, and pens while calling out the names of players walking by to please autograph whatever they were holding. My brother and I noticed that there was also a line descending from the window of the broadcasting booth where people were waiting for Len, Bob, and Ron. Even though at one point Ron had to leave to do a post-game interview, he promised he'd be back so we continued to wait. What a guy! He was so nice, signed my baseball along with my brother's, and smiled for a picture. I could barely contain my enthusiasm when I got up to the window, pointed to my dad who was watching from a few rows away, and said "You're our dad's favorite player!" and so Ron gave him a smile and a wave.

It's a shame that he never got to go to the World Series during his playing career, nor did he ever see the Cubs get there in his lifetime. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of all was that he was never voted into the Hall of Fame while he was still living to celebrate all his many accomplishments. It's amazing how good of a player he was, and to think he did all that he did while also having diabetes is incredible. But with true class, Ron never complained. In fact, when the Cubs retired his number, he said that it meant more to him than the Hall of Fame.

In recent years, younger generations of Cubs fans have grown to love him not as a player, but as one of the most colorful sports commentators if you listened to WGN radio. (I personally loved it when he'd get on random tangents about his cats.) He did so much for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and not even the loss of both of his legs could slow him down.

Chicago and baseball have lost a legend. (Don't forget, he played one season with the White Sox at the end of his career.) Ron Santo was a class act, a heck of a ball player, and he had a personality in a class of its own. So thanks for the many years of memories, Ron. May your family find comfort during this difficult time and may you rest in peace. When the Cubbies finally do win the ultimate prize, I'm sure you'll be cheering the loudest wherever you are.

Day #8069 - Book Binge

For those of you out there who once upon a time may have been English majors, the term "word vomit" is probably not something new. For those of you who weren't, allow me to elaborate. Word vomit is more or less just writing whatever is in your head on a topic, whatever random ideas whether they work together or not. This is a common occurrence among writers pulling an all-nighter, realizing that the paper assigned a few weeks ago is due in a few hours. For others this could just be a natural part of their writing process, wanting to get all their ideas down first, then moving them around and making more sense of them later via editing.

However, this weekend I've been experiencing what could best be described as a book binge - rather than writing everything down as fast as I can and hardly allowing time for anything to process, I've been having to read so quickly that there hasn't been much time to enjoy it and only taking enough time where the stories can sink in for when I need to discuss them in class this coming week. For my children's lit class, I've read three out of the four assigned novels for the week in the last few days. Two alone I read yesterday, one of which was a Newberry Honor winner and I had to sprint through it in a matter of hours. I'm about to jump into my fourth novel of the weekend, but knowing I need to metaphorically inhale it by Wednesday afternoon on top of the other homework and projects that need my attention, it just feels wrong. These authors probably spent months or maybe even years writing these books, and I'm only taking a few hours with each one before needing to move on.

I guess this is all a roundabout way of commenting on time-management, though that honestly isn't what I was going for. I make to-do lists every day and consider myself to have very strong time-management skills. Yet there are always days like today when it feels like there's still more to be done than I'll ever have time for. So yes, sometimes sprinting through tasks is a necessary evil, but we should all do the best we can to recognize that pausing is sometimes just as necessary. You don't always have to stop and smell the roses, and if there's just not enough time to stop, at least take a moment to think about how remarkable the things we take for granted actually are.

Day #8033 - Stuck in the Middle

I have a confession for you, readership. While my love of Harry Potter is deep and true, a factoid that I'm sure many of you have no doubt picked up on by now, I must admit that I love some of the books rather more than others. Not that I could necessarily pick a favorite novel from the series (I like different things from different books for different reasons), but I can say without a moment's hesitation that my least favorite would have to be book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I don't really know what it is about this book, but it's always seemed to rub me a bit wrong. Like an itch right in the middle of my back that I can't reach, but I force myself to keep trying for it anyway. It is by far the longest book in the series, too, so the fact that it is the hardest for me emotionally to get through is only amplified. There's teen angst. There's awkwardness. There are people refusing to and unable to understand where others are coming from. Maybe I have such a hard time with this novel because it reminds me way too much of myself.

Except, I can't say that I dislike the whole thing. I love the parts about Dumbledore's Army and when Fred and George decide to leave school in style. But mostly, my favorite part of the book is the final 120 pages. These last chapters are easily the most depressing as well due to the death of a loved character, the revelation of a sad prophecy, the start of a war, and the somber note it ends on with all of the characters facing uncertain futures. However, after 740 pages of wanting to punch something and feeling as frusturated as Harry himself, the last eighth of the book is so beautifully and poignantly written, I don't mind that the subject matter is on the sad side. In fact, I've always been able to connect with Harry most strongly at this point in the series. Now that I've just finished the novel, I feel exhausted but at the same time relieved because the I know the next two books are literary masterpieces, at least in my opinion, and truly reveal the genius of JK Rowling's imagination, planning, and story telling.

Also, the last time I set out to read the whole series was right before the 7th book came out and I cheated by watching the 5th movie rather than reading the book because I was running short on time. But not this time!

So here's to having 5 books down, 2 to go! Keep it classy readers!

Day #7197 - Halfway There

There really is nothing quite like Urbana at the end of the school year. The weather becomes warm and teases you in the worst possible way - the more gorgeous it gets outside, the more time you're forced to sit in the Union or the dorms or the library and try to pour over the volumes of notes we've been compiling for the past 16 weeks. I also made the kind of random observation the other day now that the trees here have bloomed - when the flowers open up all over campus, I'm constantly reminded of the smell of clean laundry. It's so refreshing, it's like a mini-wake up boost in the middle of the day.

With every passing test, I can't believe that by the end of this week, I'm officially halfway done with my undergraduate career. I know that it's terribly cliche to say "I can't believe how fast it goes by" but the sentiment is so true. These past two years have been some of the best and the worst times of my life, but I really don't think I would trade them for anything. I wonder how different my college years would have been if I had gone to St. Mary's or ISU or Bradley. I'm sure I would be saying the exact same thing. No matter where I would have gone to school, I know I would have learned similar things, probably done similar things. I guess these lessons are the sort of life lessons that Ms. Howard was always talking about back in Discovery. I remember how she was always going on and on about how there's so much more to the world than what we become used to in our individual homes with our solitary lives and how there are so many more lessons out there to learn beyond the ones that we have in classrooms. I can't help but feel that next week when I get on that plane, I'm fulfilling a part of my destiny that maybe she saw coming but I was never sure of. The world is ours not for the taking, but for the exploring. If we took it for ourselves, then what would the future get?

Day #7189 - The Finals Countdown

Cheesy title for an entry, I know. But it really says it all. Plus I'm an English major who has been writing term papers non-stop for the past three weeks and is now completely out of original thoughts. Deal with it :-)

It hit me today just how fast this semester and, in fact, this whole year has gone by. A new roommate, a new major, a new floor not to mention the sorority, all the new friends I have been making (and getting to know old ones even better), and getting ready to leave for Italy. I cannot believe that in a short two and a half weeks, I'll be living in Verona. I've been dreaming of this ever since I read Bloomability in 7th grade and now, the time is almost here.

So while I sit here in my ISR dorm room (which I'm not at all ashamed to admit part of me will miss), I ought to start sifting through my endless pile of notes and stacks of books and study what it is I have been learning in my classes this semester. However, I can't help but think more about the things I have learned that weren't necessarily on any syllabus. My courses have shaped me, of course, but not just academically. As a person as well. A year ago, I would have been terrified to go to office hours and have a professor critique my thesis and then burst into tears when the criticisms started, no matter how constructive they might be. Today, though, I held my head up, was eager to hear what my professor had to say, and had an intelligent conversation with this PhD on some of the most difficult literature I've ever been asked to master on my own. I never thought I'd be able to do that. Why can't accomplishments like that be considered in my grades instead of pesky final exams?? haha :-)

In other news, I had a dream last night that I was in a dance class...how random...