Where to Go From Here

When you come to the fork in the road, what do you do? Well, I feel like I might be at that fork in the road, and honestly, I have no clue what to do. It seems like I’ve had my whole life planned out since I was a little kid, and so far it has gone mostly according to plan. I’m not really sure that I know what to do if I step outside that plan.

I always saw myself graduating from high school, getting a scholarship, and going to a good college, getting my degree and then going on and getting a job in whatever field I chose to get my degree in. Well, I’ve done half of those. I graduated, got my scholarship, and I’m going to a good school.

I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do when I started college. I thought about becoming a teacher, mainly because it is what my grandparents both did, and what I had always wanted to do since I was little. I also thought about event planning and various other things but I really wasn’t sure. I had always really wanted to do something art related, because I’ve always loved art and creativity, but I didn’t know what art related jobs were out there. It wasn’t until my first semester of college that one of my classes went on a little field trip to this tiny little bookbinding shop, where this graphic designer was showing some of her work that she had done in the layout of this new book that they were doing about New Orleans. I fell in love from the start. I remember looking at the book that she was working on and thinking that her art looked so cool and it had a practical purpose and that was what I wanted to do too.

Here’s the catch. Tulane doesn’t have a program for graphic design. I have a scholarship to go to Tulane. I moved to New Orleans to go to Tulane. Drew moved to New Orleans and transferred to UNO so I could go to Tulane.

I thought about it for the next semester, wondering how I could make it work. I looked into the programs that Tulane offered, hoping that surely in the degree listings that I had missed it somewhere. I met with my academic advisor. She couldn’t have been less helpful. She told me that I was at an esteemed research university. Not a trade school. If I wanted to study graphic design then I should have gone to a trade school. Not to Tulane.

I left confused. I’m still confused and its a year later. I decided to stick it out. Study English since that’s what I’d already started in. I added an Art Studio minor, thinking that if I wanted to go to art school for graphic design later that it would help. I got an internship last summer with a graphic design company to get some real experience and see what I would really do as a designer. I loved it.

But it is so hard for me to stay focused on school when I don’t really understand why I’m here. I want to get a degree and here someone is paying for me to get one, so that’s why I’m here. But I can’t study what I want to. But what is the point of school if I’m not studying what I want to do. I’m in the teacher certification program and my major is English, but I don’t want to teach. I want to have my own graphic design business (which Drew and I already have started) and I want to eventually have my own little boutique where I sell handmade things.

That doesn’t relate to English or Teacher Certification at all. I’m not saying that I haven’t learned anything by being here. I’ve learned a lot. I appreciate everything that Tulane has given me. But I don’t know what to do now. I feel stuck. I hate school. I’ve always loved school my whole life. But I hate school now. I have so much to do and I’m so stressed all the time, sometimes I’m up all night long finishing my work, and why? To get a degree that I’m not even going to use because its not in what I want to do?

I feel stretched too thin. My classes take up all my energy and wear me out. But at the same time, I can’t focus on them. I’m not motivated. I don’t have enough time to get all my work done. I work my butt off and sometimes I still can’t make the grades I want to make. It was really bad last semester of last year. This year it has gotten a little better because of the art classes, which I enjoy. But I’m getting worn out of school altogether and I still have two years left.

I can’t stand college. I don’t like the structure of it. I don’t like the stereotypes. I don’t understand the reasoning behind the stress and the pressure and the insanity. I can’t stand teachers that give inhuman amounts of work and expect you to get it all done, thinking that their class is the only one that you have. What about the other five that are also demanding your attention? I find myself getting distracted with wanting to work on designing things, working on ideas for our business, I want to be creative. I sit in class trying to figure out what I’m going to cook for dinner. I’m searching for structure, for stability.

I hate living in a dorm room, not having a real home. I just don’t fit in. I don’t drink. I don’t party. I don’t think that my career is the absolute number one most important thing in my life. I don’t have any friends here. People look at me like I’m crazy for coming from a small town, for having values, for thinking that family is important, for being in a serious relationship, for wanting to get married, for being domestic, for wanting to be a designer.

I was at this same place a year ago. I wanted to study design, but resigned myself to staying here and sticking with what I started. But is that really the best thing to do? I don’t want to be stupid and give up my full-ride scholarship. But it only applies to certain schools. Research universities. Not art schools and trade schools. I have a whole life in New Orleans now. Drew has a whole life in New Orleans now. He has school and two jobs. I like our life here. I just don’t like what I’m studying and I feel like I’m wasting my time. I’m sick of school, but I want a degree. I thought about studying graphic design after graduating from Tulane, but I don’t know that I’ll have the energy for any more school after I make it through here. Plus if I’m going to pay to do it later, why not just pay to do it now?

Trust me, I’ve thought this through for the past year about every way I possibly could. But I still don’t know what to do. I’m not a big risk-taker. I’m not the one to leave the path. I probably will stick it out and finish my degree here because its what I should do. I don’t know what else to do. Where do I go from here?

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On a Walk Yesterday

Notes from my walk yesterday:

Broken sidewalk, brown leaves, wind chimes.
Almost a car wreck, I saw, and
a parade float (a castle)–
all in the first two blocks.

The nice, warm, breezy weather, the leaves, the wind chimes– for some reason remind me of my Mamaw and being in her backyard. We used to sit in the swing in the backyard daily, chatting, drawing, watching the cars go by and making up our own games. Often I wish I could be back there, back there with her.

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Dress-Up

My favorite thing to do when I was little was play dress-up. I had a huge box of things that I had collected from all over our house (my older sister’s closet throw-outs). I had beads and feathers and old nightgowns and sheer fabric from my mom’s sewing stash and a couple 80’s style sparkly dresses. I also had this Greek style dress made out of an old sheet that I had to have for a class project one year that my mom made. It was a random collection of things. My childhood best friend, Molly, and I would play in that stuff, and her respective collection at her house all the time.

We had quite the imaginations. Molly was always reading, so she would always get these crazy ideas from books that we should dress up and act out. “Let’s pretend that we are from Moscow and we have to leave for America on a ship and leave our long lost loves there. We can send them telegrams.” There was always tension in her stories. Almost always were we writing letters or sending telegrams. She had a bunch of old books at her house, one that had the Greek alphabet in it, so she was always pretending that she was studying to work hard to make money to send back to her family in England or wherever. Her stories almost always had some sort of Titanic (although successful–not tragic) voyage across some ocean or another to end up in America–more often than not leaving somebody behind.

Her backyard butted up to a cornfield, so I remember several times acting like we were Indians, having to pick corn and crush it to make food and making tepees out of sheets. At my house, Kelsey and Jill would play too. We would pretend that we were straight out of “Little House on the Prairie” and we lived in the playhouse in my backyard. I would always get a big bucket of water and have to do all the laundry by hand and hang it to dry. (I only ever washed the tablecloth we had though) We would also get a big pot and make soup out of all the random ingredients we found in the yard. Turnips and tomatoes out of the garden, some leaves, and orange peel, birdseed, etc. (We never ate it, in case you were wondering)

I must say, we were creative children, or maybe we just had big imaginations. Either way, it was fun. Thank goodness for nieces. You can still get away with playing dress-up as an adult. šŸ™‚ Evie though, in the past hasn’t really liked dress up like we did. She is much more interested in sparkle than in distress, living outside, and sending telegrams. Give her time though–she will come around. šŸ™‚

Anyway, I’m getting off topic, this post was supposed to be about inspiration. I guess I was inspired by this, it inspired me to think of my childhood. Anyway, here are some more items from Etsy that look like they would be perfect for Evie’s style dress-up. Colorful and Sparkly. (although I’m pretty sure these aren’t meant for dress-up, but to be worn as a real outfit.)

Miss Ruby Sue‘s shop on Etsy specializes mainly in hair accessories:

I love the fabrics and colors she uses in her hair accessories, I’m sure kids love them!

For all the adults that can’t play dress up anymore, here are some cute accessories from Nest Pretty Things that would be perfect for dressing up an outfit:

I love the look of all the vintage buttons! So pretty and classy too! šŸ™‚

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Aesthetics

Today has been stressful. This week has been stressful. The remainder of this week will be twice as stressful as the first half of it was. I just have too much to do. But regardless of that, this post is a break from the stressful. Let’s talk about aesthetics.

Aesthetics: a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, taste, and the creation of and appreciation of beauty–reflections on art, culture and nature.

What a pretty definition. I think it pretty much sums up all my favorite things. Art, Cooking, Decorating, Design, Crafts, Nature, etc…

I heard someone today talking about aesthetics. They said that when you are engaged in aesthetic thinking, your senses are at their peak. Another big part of aesthetics is that “you are present in the current moment.”

I think that is a very important part of life, remembering to actually be present in the current moment. It is one thing that is hard to do sometimes. Especially when all day long you are sitting in a classroom, or doing homework, or working, or whatever it is that passes most of your time. Before you realize it, the day is over, the week is over, the year is over. Time flies so fast and we look back wondering where all the time went.

That is one of my joys in blogging. It has helped me to pay more attention to the little things and be present in the current moment. It also allows me to be able to look back and see where all my time went. Plus I mostly talk about aesthetics, so my senses are apparently at their peak. I also find that it helps relieve my stress. As if writing down my thoughts somehow takes the weight of them off my back.

So anyway, now that I’ve left you with that thought, I must go finish my painting homework.

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The Little Monkey

So, how do you peel a banana? Until yesterday, I was unaware of the fact that there are apparently different ways in which to do so. I had always opened a banana by pulling back on the stem part (as I made Drew demonstrate for blogging purposes):

But then yesterday when we were on our way to shop for household items, I looked over and Drew is eating a banana that he peeled backwards! (as I had him demonstrate again for blogging purposes):

When I questioned him about this odd behavior, he simply claimed, “that is how monkeys do it.” I was unaware until then that he happened to be a monkey. But apparently that is how they peel their bananas. Am I the only person that has never peeled a banana like that? How do you do it?

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20 Before Twenty

Drew and I are in the car right now on our way back to New Orleans after a weekend at home. (it is so nice that with these modernĀ conveniences today, I can be on the internet while we are driving down the interstate) Anyway, I needed to be reading my book for my contemporary American literature class, but instead I opted to read the January issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine that I subscribe to and haven’t had the time to read yet, even though I’ve already gotten the February issue. Since it was the January issue, it was all about the new year and starting it with a blank slate and about organization, healthy living tips, and things that would be good to do in the new year.

I had already been thinking about a lot of these things lately. I really love the way a new year feels. To me, it always feels so fresh and exciting. It is always nice to think of all the things that are going to happen this year. I am really excited about 2011. I’m excited about planning a wedding this year, about being halfway done with college this year, about getting my own apartment in New Orleans sometime this year and finally moving off campus, possibly staying in New Orleans and working this summer, and all sorts of other things that this year holds. I’m also turning 20 this year!

Speaking of turning twenty, I got this idea last week of something that I wanted to accomplish in the last few months before I turn twenty this May. It was inspired by a project on one of the blogs that I read frequently, Making it Lovely. For the girl on the blog, it was a list of 30 things that she wanted to before she turned 30. Mine is similar, although it is a list of 20 things that I want to do before I turn 20.

To start thinking about 20 things that I wanted to do before I turned twenty, I first started thinking about what had I already accomplished in the twenty years that I’ve been alive. I had a great childhood, graduated from high school with honors, got into Tulane University, got a full-ride scholarship for college, moved to Louisiana, survived the first two years at Tulane, survived the first two years away from home, spent a month and a half outside of the United States by myself (in France, Germany & Belgium), traveled many places in the United States (Alabama, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,Ā Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin), visited the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and the English Channel, fell in love, went on a vacation with just Drew, got ENGAGED, started planning my wedding, got a pretty good idea of what I want to do for my career, and about a million other things. Overall, I’m pretty happy with what all I’ve accomplished so far in life.

I only have three and a half months before I turn 20, and this semester won’t end until about the week before then, so I know that I can’t plan to try to do anything outrageous before then. So my list is just a small list of little to-dos that it is my goal to accomplish before May 13, 2011. So here it goes:

(and these are in no particular order either)

1. get engagement photos taken
2. officially set the date for the wedding
3. try cooking new things with new ingredients (I think we might pick at least 1 new recipe a week)
4. write a substantial poem
5. launch Drew & I’s combined design business (We’ve been working on it and I’m excited about it!)
6. finish the stuff I need to do for my mom’s bow business
7. officially decide on a location for the wedding & reception
8. go bridal shopping and try on my first wedding dress!
9. sew something on my new sewing machine I got for Christmas (I have several projects I want to do)
10. Have a Corks N Canvas date night with Drew (more about that here)
11. write another creative non-fiction short story
12. get a job for this summer
13. start a bible study that Drew & I do together
14. Make a budget/spending plan for Drew & I
15. Continue my healthier self diet & start going on more walks
16. work on decorating Drew’s apartment so it feels more “homey”
17. finish my 50 hours of community service for my scholarship that I need this semester
18. make my creative portfolio of all my art and design work
19. get my first apartment
20. work on the design for my wedding invitations and other various wedding planning

I’ll probably blog about most of them as I get them done, so you should be hearing about them again soon. šŸ™‚

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On the Edge of Understanding

I can’t get the idea of being on the edge of understanding, or on the edge of what you know, out of my head. It was a comment that Robert Hass stated in his poetry reading last night that I blogged about before. It seems be the perfect metaphor for life right now.

Well, I guess you could say that it is the perfect metaphor for everyone’s life, because no one truly knows what is ahead in life, so we are all at the edge of what we know. But I think it is particularly relevant to that of someone my age. As a child, I had this sort of idea of where life would take me. Of going to school and making good grades, graduating, getting a scholarship and going to a good college. I had ideas of things other than that, like getting married, working and having kids, but it was all in some far off land from what I knew. I think that the time after graduating from high school, and then for some, being in college as well, is generally a time of being on the edge of understanding. It is this weird space of time where what you used to know is no longer the case and how events will unfold in the future isn’t certain. Everyday, I am further pushing myself up against my edge of understanding to learn more about the things in life I don’t know. Be this simply figuring out what the future holds, or getting a grasp on it.

Apart from that, if that even made any sense, are more literal examples. In my painting class for instance. I love art and I’ve painted since I was two years old. However, I’ve never had an intense painting course like this one, so I constantly find myself on the edge of my current understanding. The good thing about being there though, is the fact, that usually by the end of the day, you’ve pushed your edge of understanding just a little farther. You know more than you did when you walked in the studio that day.

The same with my contemporary American literature class. It drives me up the wall. I wanted to drop it and switch to a different class. It is all about politics, which I hate. Politics are all about opinions and what someone thinks is right verses what someone else thinks. It gives me a headache. However, the thing I think that made me dislike the class from the start, was the fact that it wasn’t my style. It wasn’t the literature that I liked. It wasn’t in my comfort zone. It wasn’t my preference. The political opinions weren’t my own. But what if I only read things I liked? How would I learn about new things? Or more than that, how would I know what I didn’t like if I hadn’t read it? I keep reminding myself that I have to stick with the class because it is on the edge of what I know. The class has a lot of new concepts for me. There is a lot of reading. Half the time, I don’t completely understand what we are talking about in class.Ā  But I’m starting to. I’m at the edge of my understanding. The class definitely isn’t my favorite, but I am certain that I will learn from it. Everyday I’m pushing my edge of understanding out a little farther than it was before.

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The Little Weasel

Okay so I promise, this is my last post for today. I had been meaning to link to Drew’s blog a couple days ago and just hadn’t gotten around to doing it. Over the weekend, he re-designed it and it looks pretty awesome. You should definitely check it out. The Sweet Spot can be found here. There is a pretty interesting post about him weaseling his way around our “diet” that he just posted here. šŸ™‚

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Thoughts on the Rain

Today I have just been in the writing mood. Or maybe I’ve just been in the creative mood. I wrote a blog post earlier today and had ideas for several others, I painted for several hours and went to a poetry reading. Then I wrote a poem in the car to and from the grocery store. Then I blogged about the poetry reading. Now I’m blogging about the poem.

Well, I would hardly call it a poem just yet. I’m new to this and I just wrote down my thoughts and so it seems too new a creation that it can’t be called a poem just yet. That’s why I’ll just call it: Thoughts on the Rain.

Rain streaks wet color on the pavement.
Blurry then clear again.
A painting in progress.
Movement. Shifting. Drifting, on.

I pass between the raindrops like a maze.
Someone once told me.

Well the first stanza I wrote in the car. It seems a little more cohesive. The last stanza I actually wrote earlier today before I even went to the poetry thing and it doesn’t really fit exactly with the other, but the idea of walking in the spaces in between raindrops seems like such a neat thing that I couldn’t help but mention it as well. Hopefully after a revision or two, I can make this into a better poem, but hey, it is a start. I’ve started to explore poetry and I did more than my two minutes of writing for the day! šŸ™‚ I’d say it was a successful day, except that so far, I’ve read none of the reading for any of my classes tomorrow. šŸ™

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Robert Hass Poetry Reading

In one of my previous posts, about my life list of creative things that I wanted to do, one of the things that I mentioned was exploring poetry. Well, I’ve started on that one at least a little more today.

This evening, Tulane hosted Robert Hass, a well-known poet, as part of their Poet Laureate Series. I made Drew come with me and we went and listened to the poetry reading. Poetry is something that I was really only introduced to last semester in my creative writing class and since then I’ve been very intrigued by it. I was very inspired by listening to the poems that Hass read, by the things he wrote about, the way they sounded, the interesting things he paired together and just the way that everything flows together in poetry.

When describing poetry, he said, in poetry “all you want to do is catch a livingĀ  moment.” I’m not sure if those were his words or if he was quoting someone else, but either way, I like the statement. He also said, concerning what poetry does is “makes rock, rock and grass, grass by freeing us from the autonomy of perception.” Again I don’t know if those were his words or a quote from someone else.

He read a very interesting poem about consciousness. He said a good exercise is to try to locate the first moment of consciousness that you remember and write about it. For some reason, I automatically thought about what you see first when you wake up in the mornings, but I don’t know if that is solely what he meant, considering Drew took it as the first thing that you could remember ever. The poem Hass wrote seemed to have images from different times, so it seems like you could try the exercise either way. I think I might try writing about this.

He also read his poem entitled, “State of the Planet.” I thought it was very interesting, the things that he mentioned, considering there are a million ways you could write about the state of the planet. The imagery was exceptional and I liked the way he combined different things.

About his writing process, he said that he recommended to others to write a little everyday. He said that “if you only work when inspired, it would all be like dictation from angels and you would have no work properly speaking.” This I do believe was a quote from someone else, but I was writing so fast to jot it down and I didn’t catch the name of who originally said it. He said that he tells himself to write at least 2 minutes everyday. Sometimes he writes only that, but if he tells himself that he only has to set aside two minutes it gets him writing and many times he writes for longer. He also quoted, “you can’t revise nothing.” So if you don’t have any writing done, you can’t revise it and make it better. So you have to start somewhere.

He said to work on the edge of what you know and understand. He also described the writing process as the same with any art (he referenced painting, which I’ve been doing today too, so I appreciated that) and that as far as ideas or images, you are “finding your way towards something that you don’t know, but you’ll know when you get there.”

His most recent book, The Apple Trees at Olema: Selected Poems & Essays, 1985-2009 is definitely going to be added to my list of books to read soon.

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