I want to be less inhibited.  And to realize that I don't need anything or anyone to be madly in love with life and to experience it to its fullest.

It takes not caring so much what other people think.

It takes loving yourself.

It takes having good self-esteem.

It requires one to embrace the good and wondrous and lovely and beautiful and colorful, and to let go quickly of the bad and ugly and difficult (although difficult often yields beauty and joy).  Why do we hold on so tightly to the things that make us sad and unhappy?

The truth is, I love the way I am when I am less inhibited by useless notions of right and wrong ("Is it okay to say that?  What if they don't see it as a joke?  What if they don't like me?").  I feel like I have just chipped away a bit of the surface of it, but have yet to rid myself of the whole.

The truth is, you can never escape yourself.  No matter where you move, what job you have, what friends like you, who your family is, what you accomplish in life...though it may sound cliche, happiness starts from the inside out.  If you're not happy here and now, will you really be happier with peripheral changes?  

I think a great part of happiness comes from deeply experiencing your life; in a way giving yourself permission to enjoy the good parts uninhibited and uncensored.  Of course I'm not encouraging drug use or promiscuity.  Just being free to enjoy the simple little things that make us all glad to be alive and human.  Skipping to class on your way to finals, letting your breath catch in your throat from sight of a sunrise, taking 20 minutes to sit on your front porch in the cool of dawn simply being and listening to birds singing...

"Happiness is not a destination, but a method of life." -Burton Hills

Today was good.

I went with my soon-to-be roommate, Jessica, to ArtWalk. ArtWalk is on the first Friday of every month. Art galleries and shops downtown open their doors after hours so that people from the community can come in and see their wares and participate in a cultural event. I especially like going in the galleries. I love to imagine my work hanging in galleries someday.

I think I'm going to start on a painting tomorrow, even though there are finals and all kinds of crazy things looming.

Jessica is fun. I think she'll be good to live with.

Okay, I'm exhausted and my throat hurts and I feel like I will die if I do not immediately pass out, so that's all for tonight.

Would it be weird to you for a tattoo artist to have no tattoos?  There's this odd, if not secuestered goth, part of me that secretly wants to be a tattoo artist.  If you were getting a tattoo, would you trust a little, innocent, American pie, unpainted blondie to tattoo you?

At least I bet they get paid better than teachers!

A few other jobs that appeal right now:

1. Art professor

2. Caricature artist

3. Children's book illustrators (and maybe even writer)

4. Writer

5. Marine or rainforest biologist

6. Life coach

7. Psychic (if you can actually develop these abilities)

What are your top 8 most fascinating jobs right now?

God, sometimes I wonder if I should just cut the shit and become a career counselor, haha.  : )

Today has been a rollercoaster.  I didn't actually cry nor have reason to cry, but I felt a lot of ups and downs today (maybe the general term for this is PMS?  Haha, j/k).

This morning Shawn woke me up with a phone call straight from the doctor's office to tell me he didn't have to have surgery.  This was a sigh of relief in so many ways.  But mostly relief because I know how much he hates crutching around.  And I also believe that if you don't have to cut open the body, then don't.  Maybe the body never fully heals from this.  But the day was off to a beautiful, if groggy, start.

Then I went to Audiology class, my hardest class.  No matter how much I study, I can't seem to succeed how I want to succeed in that class!  I always do poorer than I think I will, and the neurotic, frazzled Speech-Pathology majors in there heighten my stress level by at least 15%.  Just by sitting near them.  

But then it was so lovely outside I forgot all about tests and finals looming and thousands of projects due next week, and went to an art store to just snoop around for a bit.  They sell these stuffed dolls of famous painters.  For over a year I've secretly and desperately wanted the Vincent van Gogh one because HE HAS A VELCRO DETACHABLE EAR.  I hadn't been in the store since the last time I lusted over him, but the one Vincent they had left was missing the detachable ear!  : (  So that would not do, and he didn't come home with me.  But I still had fun just looking at the art supplies.  I think I could happily lay in the middle of an art store for hours, just looking at the paints and brushes and canvases and easels and imagining myself being a world-class painter painting her way across the globe...

Then Shawn and I went to another art store (more bliss!) and had lunch.  It had its ups and downs which I could write a thousand posts about, but it was mostly ups.

Then I worked on a project and the stress descended upon me like a black fog.  Then off to class, then I realize, almost in passing, that I usually relate better to guys than girls, but have very few guy friends (mostly because I worry that they just want to date me and not really be my friend); then back home and several messages and a sweet gift on facebook, then more project, then ELATION!!  Project finished!  There is something so satisfying and uplifting about finishing a monumental project.  Even nearly crashing into a car on my way to my parents couldn't quench it, although my heart just about spewed out of my throat.

Then a nice walk with parents and my sweet, lovable little dog.  I LOVE my little dog.  Because she pretends to hate me but will run and hide behind my legs when mom calls her.  (Mom smothers her.  And jogs her.  And gives her an inhumane number of treats every day.)  And dad and I talked for an hour about how to get rich fast.  We basically decided that when one of us figures out how to do it, we'll call the other.  Yet articles about millionaires before 30 never cease to fascinate me.  There is this book by one at Barnes & Noble I really want to buy called "The 4-Hour Workweek."  I want to buy the book, not the millionaire.  Although I won't tell you my thoughts about buying a millionaire, except I'd like to believe that people who marry for money earn it.  But that's probably not true.  Women probably just tell you that so they can hog all the millionaires to themselves.

Then home and java chip ice cream and popcorn and my roommate tells me she'll probably go study abroad next spring.  So I don't know if I'm going to live in my house another year.

But it'll all be okay.  Sometimes you just have to live life one day at a time.  

Fabulous news--Shawn doesn't have to have surgery!!!!

Do you ever feel like no job appeals?  Like instead of working you want to just go dance around in a sunny, flower-filled field?  This is a weird way for me to feel, because usually I can think of all kinds of careers I'd love to do.  (I think I obsess WAY to much about careers, by the way.)  But at the end of the day, I think it'll feel like just a job, and it will feel mundane, and I will have visions of driving right past work into the horizon, never looking back.  

With observing a classroom, I think I've found all the reasons why I shouldn't be a teacher (I'm not assertive enough, sometimes kids jar me, I don't have the best classroom management skills, I hate waking up early, I don't like to be responsible of groups of people's well-being, I hate all the work you have to do outside of school for planning...).  But it feels like most of the good reasons of why I went into it just haven't shown up in my practicum experience.  This isn't anybody's fault.  It's just how I feel.  Part of me wonders if I'm expecting too much or if this is a product of stress, as I tend to get this way at the end of the semester.  But I had this glowing excitement going into this semester that the bottom just fell out of the first few days of practicum, and the disillusionment has stuck ever since then.  Maybe this age group isn't the best for me.  I've always thought I'd be best teaching college kids, but I'm not going to school for the things I'd want to teach college kids.  I think I would either want to be a professor of art or anthropology.

I could go on and on about all this for hours.  Sigh.  Life's complexities are often absolutely mind-boggling.

Britt pretty much wants to stab school in the eye.

With a rusty cattleprod.

Yes, that is exactly how I feel about that.

Kelly, I can't imagine how you must be feeling!

On a positive note (although gouging out school's eye with a rusty cattleprod sounds pretty positive to me right now), I've signed up to take a summer school drawing class.  It will be a grueling 4 week, 4 days a week, 4 hours a day class.  I'll love every minute of it.  Except the minutes that I'll miss every day, leaving my job at 11:50 to try to get to the class by 12.  Did I mention that my job goes from 7:15 in the morning to 11:50?...  It will be a frantic but fun June.  I will feel strong and triumphant after conquering this June.

Kids

Wednesday I chased first graders around a farm.  I felt these neurotic tendencies arising:  "Where'd Johnny go?"  "WHERE'S JOHNNY!!!!!"  "James, you're walking TOO FAR AHEAD OF ME!!!!"  (In my ideal world, they all would've had on leashes.)  

For part of the visit, we went to a presentation by (the rather hot) Mr. Nate.  Not only did he give an enlightening program on the life cycle, but he brought in a live cow (consequently named Dottie)!  And a chicken he carried around the room allowing every kid to pet it!  I also remember thinking he was surprisingly good with kids, maybe better than I'll ever be (this is the source of my angst over my career).  He also made me realize that with kids, you really always need visuals.  Heck, with adults, so many lectures in college would be better with the proper use of visuals.  That man Mr. Nate had any possible visual someone could implement about chickens and cows, short of an artificial insemination machine.

At lunch, instead of sitting with the teacher like a proper adult, I sat on the ground and ate my Lunchable with a few of the girls in class.  I love watching their curiosity about an older girl.  They look at you a little differently than they look at older teachers, as if they're thinking, "Someday could I be you?"  They can't ever picture themselves being old; old to them is 20s.  Heck, old to them is 14, or even third grade.  I just hope that if I somehow manage to reach out and touch their lives, it will be positive.  The few times I've messed up and not positively influenced a child's life absolutely haunt me.    

Riding the school bus back to school, I realized I felt the same way I always did after field trips as a kid; smelling of sweat and dust and sunlight, exhausted but smiling.

In search of the elusive "chic spot"...

A new place in town has opened that I believe would fully qualify as a "chic spot."  (!!!!)  In the past I have resisted applying to several of my own favorite "chic spots" for fear that being there so often would take away a bit of their chicness.  You obviously don't want to go hang out with your friends at the place you work.  But this place seems to be exactly the kind of place I'm looking for:  sells drinks (you make better tips this way), but also sells food (keeps the place from attracting large numbers of ravaging drunk people), and has a fun, chic atmosphere and friendly, personable staff that I can easily become friends with.  I'm not sure if the last one about atmosphere is true, but judging from the place it's located, I could see this being my ideal kind of place to work.  Another perk of working there would be that it is only open part of the week, so it would leave me with plenty of time for classes.  Wish me luck, friends, as I go to scope it out today!  : D

I've been thinking about the course of my life for the next 3 years a lot lately.  It's funny--over the last 4 months my plans have changed from wanting to be done with grad school and teaching deaf kids to wanting to get my doctoral degree in anthropology to wanting to be a zoologist to, today, if I had to choose what would happen in the next 3 years, it would go something like this:

Year 1:  Graduate.  Throw all those damn teacher certification classes to the wind and take art and French and maybe anthropology classes.  Find a job at a chic spot.

Year 2:  Wait for Shawn to graduate.  Save as much money as possible.  Take tons of art and French classes.  Research moving to France.  Keep trucking at aforementioned "chic spot" and/or find better-paying interim job.

Year 3:  Move with Shawn to France, landing a job with an environmental protection agency.  Find a fabulous art teacher or go to a top notch art school in the evenings.  Travel as much as possible in free moments.  

What's your dream 3-year plan?

Today I want to just quit everything, flash the bird to real life, pack up, and go to art school.  : /

Life feels like it will be so ordinary if I don't.

The funny part is that life is going well.  I'm happy.  But I just don't want this forever.

Just stumbled upon this website the other day (it was actually on a facebook ad!).  It is really fascinating.  Even reading about the website and its founder was really interesting.

I already posted a note on facebook about an article on depression in creative people that absolutely spoke to me.  It makes sense that we as creative individuals seek, more than most people, to create and find meaning in life.  When we can't find that meaning, it really gets to us.  I really want to read the author's book, The Van Gogh Blues:  A Creative Person's Path Through Depression.  

there are so many voices in the world; as many as there are people.  

it's so hard to know which ones to listen to.

there is so much deception, but also glimmers of Truth.  

it is hard to discern between the two; difficult to extract the grain of Truth from the chaff.

i think i wish i knew more things for sure, but i don't know how i ever will.

perhaps Paradise is absolute certainty...

Tonight I happened to start going through my pictures of Europe and then I couldn't stop!  I am overwhelmed by how lucky I feel to have visited so many places and had such lovely experiences, all at a very young age.  There's this one picture I took of an apartment window in Sevilla.  This apartment window is like none other you've ever seen.  This mere apartment window has the power to instantaneously make me happy, no, JOYOUS to be alive!!

Big news:  Shawn and I are going to Orlando for spring break!!!!

I plan to spend an entire day unflinching and immobile; sprawled out on the beach.  And I mean I want people to poke at me to see if I'm dead or alive.  That is how sprawled out I will be!

And my birthday was fantastic.  School was cancelled due to snow, and I got to spend the entire day lounging around with Shawn.  We went to Barnes & Noble (I can't survive without going there at least twice a week!  Obsessive?  I think so!) and then had dinner with two friends at Applebee's. 

Shawn got me the sweetest gift--dancing lessons for two!  This was a real sacrifice, since he's been, shall we say, "hesitant" in the past about dancing, to say the least.  Now I really can't wait for his ankle to be better!  (Hopefully in time for Orlando!)

This Sunday I'm throwing a belated birthday tapas and sangria fiesta!  I wish you all could be there!

Lately, too, I've had an increased interest in spirituality.  I've been reading some spiritual books; one called A Woman's Path and one called Essential Spirituality:  Seven Practices to Awaken the Heart and Mind.  Yes, I'm too lazy to link those.  I highly recommend A Woman's Path.  I feel like simply reading it is a spiritual experience!  I haven't gotten far enough in the other one, but it seems really good so far.  

I feel so lucky.  Life is good.  (Hence the many exclamation points that I just now noticed but opt to sleep instead of change them.)

Is it odd that I recreationally go to the pet store to look at puppies?  And when I say "recreationally," I mean I've been FOUR TIMES IN THE PAST TWO WEEKS.  Meanwhile, I drag helpless victims in with me.  Today's was Dad.  And I swear to you, when I was done with him, the man had nearly stuffed an entire Australian Shepherd Dog puppy into his pocket.  Whole.

Needless to say, I think the time is looming when I should just break down and get a dog.

Speaking of breaking, Shawn has definitely been walking around on a BROKEN ANKLE for the past THREE WEEKS.  Poor baby.  He showed up at my house wielding crutches and sporting a knee-high black walking cast, and I couldn't help but say aloud, "You POOOOOOR thing!" in that high, rather nauseating voice we all know and love.  I don't think he appreciated that so much, but I'm all, "If I can't have something small and furry and lickably delicious to croon at, I damn well right am going to croon at you!"

Do you believe in ghosts?

I've always been raised to not believe in ghosts, but lately they've been a common theme in conversation.  A cartoon ghost even appeared on tv tonight, just hours after I had an extended conversation about them with a friend and received an email about them from someone else!  (Those kinds of coincidences are creepy. *shivers*)

It intrigues me that at least 3 people very close to me, and who I trust, have ghost stories from their own lives.  One friend was telling me hers, and it literally made all the hairs on my body stand on end.

I feel like I'm going through this really spacey, superstitious phase.  Or at least I'm interested in finding out more about things I've previously blown off as silly or a spoof.  

What do you think?  Are ghosts real?  Please feel free to share any ghost stories, the creepier, the better!  (I think I may have already asked for ghost stories around Halloween, but if you have more or want to repost, that's fine, too.)

Boo!  ; )

10 Weird Things About Me (stolen from Martha)

1. I not only played the normal kid instruments (flute and piano) but I also played the harp (and I kind of want to start it up again).  

2. I knit, even so well that people won't believe me when I say I made a particularly ornate cabled beanie cap--they think I bought it from American Eagle!  

3. I can wax poetic about the workings of the inner ear.

4. In most of my spare time, I enjoy reading books about alternative ideas like psychic phenomena, tarot, and Wicca.  

5. I obedience trained my dog, almost to obedience competition quality, at the age of 15.  I'm still very snooty about people who don't train their dogs well.  

6. My hair has been prone to change color at will.  Call me Tonks.  

7. I do visualization exercises before I go to bed and swear that they have cured me from illness.

8. A self-declared poetry nerd, I should really get around to writing again and try to submit some of my work.  I have one particularly haunting poem that perfectly reflects my religious state, and desperately desire to share it with the world through publishing.

9. I am an absolute language geek and wish I could learn every language in the world fluently.  I immensely enjoy tutoring struggling students in Spanish.

10. My life will be complete when I own the tiniest, sweetest Chihuahua that I can dress up in rhinestone-studded clothing and carry around in a purse.

So I am totally lusting after this woman's long, luscious, purpley-deep brown hair.  I saw her in Barnes & Noble wearing a rich purple cardigan with a cream lace cami, and for one swift moment I wanted to be her.

It is nights like this where going blonde again is totally NOT an option.  At least not yet.  I want to be a luscious, purpley-brown minx.

It's odd and unexplainable, but lately I've had a near-ravenous craving for space.  From everybody.  It doesn't mean I love everybody any less, but being alone is bliss for me right now.  I fight the urge to not keep my phone turned off all day.  When people invite me to hang out, more often than not I'd rather stay in my room and read for leisure.  Usually I make myself go anyway, and end up having a pretty good time.

Like last night when Shawn's sisters and I went out to a favorite local bar to celebrate B's birthday.  I ended up having a really fun time with them, and felt so included by his sisters.  It was great.  We met up early at T's house to get ready, and everyone cooed over each other's clothes and makeup and hair, and it was such serious bonding time that I didn't have the heart to tell them that I'm usually not that girly.  A perfect example of not being all that girly is when T came over beforehand to help me pick out an outfit, and I decided on one, and she said, "Well, don't you want to bring a couple more to my house in case you change your mind?"  And I'm all, oh yeah, most girls bring multiple changes of clothes on a regular if not daily basis.  But I pride myself on my ability to make up my mind (a feat near-impossible for a woman), if only about my evening attire.   

I think I'm starting to love them.  : )