Another novel finished....

So I finished Steinbeck's East of Eden this evening. Prior to starting it for my literature class, I had been warned that it had a very depressing ending. Yet as I sit here this evening going over the last of the novel I am not depressed. As a matter of fact, I found the ending to be quite hopeful.

Yes the book contained death, fear, frustration, and many other depressing emotions. Yet, it also contained life. joy, happiness, love and all the other happy sappy things. And that seemed to be Steinbeck's purpose. In this complex story, Steinbeck wasn't just showing us the age old story of Cain and Abel, or even the myth of Pandora's box. This wasn't good vs. evil. This story protrays the spectrum of good to evil that exists in all of us. We are human, and to be human means that we are constructed from all of the good and bad emotions that are attached to humanity. Jealousy fear and hate, vie for supremacy over love, compassion, and courage. We must accept that those things exist not only in others but in ourselves as well. Once we can accept the world as it is, THEN we can work towards improving ourselves. We can recognize as Steinbeck's Cal did, that we are our "own kind of mean" and work to correct it. That is what this life is for, is it not? To work towards perfection, not that we will achieve it but that we can work towards it.

Anti-Social....

As usual I am tired. The last couple of weeks have been especially hard and I am really really tired. School only has another couple of weeks and I can take a little break. But tonight I am hiding from the world.... well most of the world..... I will still be living in the homework world and I will be totally open for AmyO as she reads Wolfsbane for the first time. :)

So in effort not to be a stick in the mud and ruin the night for anyone else I have chosen to hide out and Mom's house while they are out of town... Hi Mom, hope you're having fun!

So I am off to work on my bio homework, read East of Eden, and watch movies.... Have a great weekend.

Nature's First Green Is Gold

I can't sleep this evening. Classes start again tomorrow and I need to be sleeping but my mind had latched on to an old Robert Frost poem and won't let go.

Robert Frost first published the short poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" in the 1923 Yale Review. Later that year it was included in Frost's collection tilted New Hampshire, which also included "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The collection was also awarded the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

I remember reading this poem years ago while living in DC and enjoying the tone and rhythm. It just flows off the tongue. The rhyming pattern is as obvious as the alliterations are subtle. The words of the poem meander through your mind like a fresh bubbling brook. Skipping from word to word and line to line but never settling. I didn't put much thought into the meaning of the poem at the time. I just enjoyed it.

Fast forward a few years and in an American Literature class my professor, Rob Carney, asked us to memorize and recite two poems for the class. I chose this poem mostly because I knew that it would be an easy one to memorize.

At the time, the only interpretation I focused on was the same classic interpretation that S.E. Hinton uses as a theme to his popular novel The Outsiders. It has been to many years since I have read Hinton's novel or watched the movie that was adapted from it, yet I do know that one of the themes had to do with the need to stay gold or golden. Meaning to try to stay innocent or to achieve the perfection of the innocent.

Frost's use of the word gold in line one is substituted in line six with the word Eden. In Christian religions Eden refers to the garden of perfection created by God and then inhabited by an innocent Adam and Eve. If we follow this line of thinking then, the gold which Frost is referring to is the perfection of the innocent unmarred by worldly cares, needs, or even realities. In Eden, there were no thorns to prick the finger, or weeds to choke the flowers. It wasn't until Adam and Eve were forced out of Eden that they learned sorrow and the work of tilling the land for their harvest. The reference that "Eden sank to grief" is this loss of innocence that Adam and Eve suffered as they were cast out of the Garden.

Frost also uses quite a few words to remind us that time is not infinite. Words such as first, early, hold, only, hour, and even dawn, reinforce the poems argument that the initial innocence of our lives is fleeting. The beauty of childhood lasts but a short time before we are forced to accept the reality of the world that surrounds us.

As I was learning about this poem for my lit class I was so focused on the "grief" that comes from the loss of the gold that I didn't take the time to delve any deeper into the possible implications. But tonight as I lie in bed I again recognized not only the need we have for change but also the joy that can be found in such changes.

Frost reminds us that Nature's first steps are gold and flowers. Spring is often connected with the beauty of renewed innocence and life. The short life span of the cherry blossoms and lilacs illustrate the fleetingness of Frost's poem. Yet the brevity of spring passes into the beauty of a hot summer day. Summer fades to the crunch of the autumn leaves which then flow to the glitter of a frosty morning. Just because the beauty of the first green has passed doesn't mean beauty can't be found in the life that follows.

In yet another portion of the poem, Frost refers to the dawn going down. We all know that the dawn is about the rising of the sun. Frost is using the alliteration to draw attention to the other 'D' words in the line (dawn and day) while implying the passage of time and the end of the dawn. While the dawn is very beautiful, I am rarely awake for it. The day is where my life happens. Work, and school, friends and family, fill my days and evenings not my dawn. The joys and laughter the pain and sorrow aren't to be found in the first glittering moments of my dawn. They are the product of all of my experiences throughout the rest of my day.

As line eight has been reverberating through my mind, it has been reminding me of a quote from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Frost states "So dawn goes down today" to which I hear Anne reply "Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it." Reference to dawn going down, allows one to think of the setting of the sun. With the passing of one day, or season, or experience, we are offered the opportunity to have others. Part of the joy found in life is taking a wrong turn and discovering a whole new world along the back roads. If the sun were never to set, or the dawn turn into day, how would we ever get the chance to experience life to it's fullest.

So, thank you Mr. Frost. Yes, the dawn of my life has passed and I am headed into the heat of the day. And while the first blush of youth has worn away, I am lucky to enjoy the life I lead as each experience leads me to the other opportunities.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

The future....

This morning I spent my time looking at my schools of choice for my Master's program. They have been narrowed down to 5 schools all on the east coast. In the order of preference:

• Simmons Graduate School of Library Science in Boston
• Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis
• Rutgers School of Communication and Information - New Brunswick, New Jersey
• Louisiana State University Baton Rouge
• University of Maryland

Boston and Indianapolis get priority ranking because they offer dual Master's programs. I can study Library Science and Public History at the same time.

Maryland gets last place because, while I love that part of the country and they offer the dual program, a couple of the alumni say the school is not the easiest to work with.

Next Step... The dreaded GRE. Most of the schools only require it if I have a GPA less than 3.2 (Not even close...Phi Theta Honors society... Thank you very much!). But it is required for 2 of the schools. So.... yet another thing to study for. The application deadlines for Fall of 2012 aren't until February/March so I have a bit of time.

Ugh... this blog post is completely disjointed.... Much like my graduate plans.... It is time to pull things together so I can reach my goals!

Now I am off to meet the woman over my internship.... wish me luck. :)

I DID IT!!!

Grades are out and I got an A- in the Nature of History! I was hoping for a C so this is a load off my mind.

WAHOO!

The other classes were just as good. An A- in US history, a B in Contemporary Literature, and a B- in Critical Theory.

Life is GOOD!

And now I am signing off.

YIPPEEEE!!
Okay now I will return to acting my age.

Good Morning....

WIth out school, my nights have been boring. There is only so much tv you can watch before you want to pluck out your own eyes. Reading helps but even that doesn't seem to be able to pull my focus as school had. I can't wait to start up again next week.

I have to admit though...Lazy mornings are quickly becoming an addiction. My mornings resemble that of Oliver in the musical with out the maid and the singing town. I love listening to the morning through my open window as I slowly wake up. *sigh*

Interpretations

I blog in the shower.

Not literally of course, but, as I stand under the hot water, my mind clears and flits from topic to topic. Unfortunately, the epics I compose in the shower rarely appear here among my blog posts. Usually because once I am out of the shower I have very little time to sit and write down my thoughts. Today, though, is a lazy day with a lazy shower. There was even singing, slow church hymns that reverberate off the walls of the bathroom and echo through the soul. In my laziness I have time to throw my thoughts out into the universe.

As the hot water beat down on my hair I began to brush my teeth (I figure I can justify longer showers if I include brushing my teeth. ;) ) and was reminded of a memory from decades ago. I remember standing at the sink with my Grandpa Rocky watching him brush his teeth. I couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 and was in awe at the amount of white toothpaste that covered his lips. Since I was just a child, I assumed that this is what happened when grown ups brushed their teeth and began to try to achieve the same result. I even remember resorting to wiping toothpaste on my lips so I could look more grown up.

This memory brought to mind the endless discussions from this semesters Lit class on interpretation. Our individual experiences effect how we view the world. And not only personal experiences but communal ones as well. I will never understand completely the horrors of Pearl Harbor or the fear of McCarthyism just like a child born this year will never comprehend the loss and fear America suffered on 9/11. Books are written, movies are made, and songs are dedicated to the experiences but that effect is not the same. My choices will forever reflect the experiences of my life.

Even among a society or a family for instance, events can cause different interpretations. For example, I am one of 12 children who were raised by my mother and step-father. As my memory is so faulty, I often call my siblings for clarification on events of our past. Interestingly enough, 1 event can have 12 different interpretations. AND each interpretation effects the individual differently. The situation of my childhood has influenced my choices throughout my life. Yet my sister, who is only older than me by 16 months, has been influenced in ways that I never have. While we shared many of the same experiences, our responses were vastly different. No judgement is placed on either of our choices, they are just different.

Therefore with all of these different interpretations how can we function as a whole? Can we as a society work towards the common good? How will we be able to define what is good among all of the interpretations?

As children we look to our elders to define what is right and wrong and to guide us in our actions. As students we look to our teachers to teach us the facts. As adults we find our guidance in many things. I personally, rely on my faith in Heavenly Father, as well as the knowledge I have gained through my life to guide my choices. But I fully recognize that not everyone believes as I do. My only hope is that tolerance can prevail to help us understand and accept the differences that make each individual unique.

Another one bites the dust

Saturday night has come and for the first time in weeks I am not stressing about readings or papers for class on Monday. All of my papers have been turned in and the semesters books and papers have been collected to be stored. For what? HWo knows but I feel better if they go in a box for now. Lol! I can even see my desk... dusty as it might be, I can actually see it again.

Today I slept till noon, went to dinner with my friend Sarah, watched an old 80's movie (Protocol - score one for Goldie Hawn) and read a book (Anna and the French Kiss is a very cute YA chicklit novel)

But now darkness has fallen and the quiet has descended. And what do I do with myself? I guess I can read another book. Or do some more cleaning (the bathroom is screaming at me!). But I don't really want to. I guess I could go and bug Mama and Papa Thorne..... but I hate to be a nuisance.

That is the problem with being single at my age..... what do you do? ALL BY YOURSELF! I am one who considers her alone time very precious, but once life slows down I do require interaction. It is one of the reasons I need school. I need something to keep me engaged..... Not to worry classes start on Monday for Math and Bio starts the following week.

I think I am gonna add another class just for fun..... help me out and vote:

Intro to Psych

Intro to Western Religions

or

Humanities Through the Arts

I can't decide.

Procrastination....

The semester is finally coming to a close. I finally finished my last official class and now am only left with papers to write. Granted there are 6 of them, but that is doable. 4 of them are 3 pages or less. 1 needs to be 5 pages and the last one is a research project i have been working on all semester and will have to be 8-10 pages.

Am I writing? No. I am tired. I turned in 3 papers on Wednesday and so am taking a short break. As I know it will take me about 5 hours to write this paper (I have tracked the whole semester and have found it takes me about 2 hours to write 2 pages ... pages that I would deem acceptable to turn in.) Therefore, I have another 40 minutes to let topics about the philosophy of History, Kant, and Hegel float around in my brain before I have to start writing.

What to do....what to do..... Maybe I will check in with Hulu or Netflix or maybe I will take a nap.

A weekend in thought...

So when you don't feel good and you can't do anything but stay in bed... or on the couch... or in the tub... you end up thinking a lot. This weekend was no different.

One of the running themes of my thoughts has been the changes that I have undergone in the last decade or so which prompted the asking of a what-if scenario. If only I hadn't done such and such would I now be living the life of a normal Mormon woman. Specifically, if I hadn't been in a specific relationship at 19, would my life have taken a different course entirely. One can rarely recognize changes when they are experienced. It is only looking back with 20/20 hindsight that the change become obvious.

As I discussed my what-if scenario with a couple of people, and thought about it on my own for even longer (what else are you supposed to do in the bath waiting for the pills to take effect), I finally recognized the changes that have been made over time. While the choices I have made have placed me on my current path, that doesn't mean that different choices would have me in a different or more "normal" place. At 19, I was searching for something that I had no way of understanding. And while the relationship I had was probably one of the most unhealthy that I hope to ever be in, I was no where near capable of handling a relationship that was actually healthy at that time. So therefore, had I chosen a different relationship, the probability of it being a healthy one was really low.

As a matter of fact, choosing a different, more "normal," relationship could actually have been more detrimental than the one that was chosen. At 19, young women of the LDS Church, are looking for marriage and eternal families. Had I been in a relationship that had headed in that direction I probably would have followed through with those goals. If my hypothesis is correct and I was unable to handle a healthy relationship at that age, I would therefore have placed myself in a very unhealthy marriage. I shudder to think where that path might have led me.

This is not to say that young women of 19 are incapable of healthy relationships that lead to marriage. Nor does this absolve me of the actions that I took at the age of 19. I take full responsibility those actions and the painful consequences.

So what does this mean?

Nothing to anyone but me. Looking back over the last decade, I can see the progression of my relationships and the changes that have occurred slowly over that time. While I might not be quite ready for, what I would term, a completely healthy relationship, I now know who I am and what I truly believe. That might not seem like a big deal to you, but for me.... It is a HUGE step.

P.S. Another good note..... I got an email from the Columbia University about enrollment. I know it was probably a mass emailing to students of the Phi Theta Kappa. But good night nurse, I got an email inviting me to apply to Columbia. I feel special!

A Day In Bed.....

So today was the day of my monthly sickness. It started yesterday afternoon and mom kindly offered her big jacuzzi tub. I finally feel better, but I have done nothing all day. Kinda nice...but I really can't afford the down time. Oh well.

Also, my phone has been dead since yesterday as well. So if you have tried to call, I am sorry. I will go home tomorrow and charge it up.

the midnight hour....

It is that time again and I need a quick break before settling back in for the last 3 pages of my midterm essays that are due tomorrow.

Spring break is over now. I still can't believe it passed by so quickly. But it did and now there is only a short 6 weeks until the end of the semester. I realize that my brain is stuck in school mode as that is where my world revolves. In less than 14 months I will have completed the first portion of the education that I have been headed towards for years. I know the fate of the world will not be affected by my degree. But in reality, my world will tilt on its axis at that point. Granted, I will just be headed off to more school, but that is not the true point.

This thing.... this degree, that I have put so much effort into, will have been received. For a girl that feels that she never completes a project and never settles in one place for long, this is a MASSIVE achievement. And a massively scary step. The future that I have been hoping for is going to be possible. But what if that future is not what I dream it to be. I know for a fact that real life is nothing like school. And yet, even with that fear, I am giddy as a girl on her first day of kindergarden. There are less then 14 MONTHS!

Now I just have to battle the senior-itis that is settling into the creases of my brain.

Okay I am back to a discussion of the trauma of slavery and Holocaust survivors using the neo-slave narratives of Charles Johnson and Mark Twain's Puddi'nhead Wilson.

It's happening....

It has been a hard day for me.... I can't post to much because most of it is work related, but needless to say I had a blessing today for peace an strength.

I sit here, with a paper due in a few hours wishing that i could focus. But there are so many thoughts running through my head that I am hoping that rambling will help.

School has been good. I am fascinated by my classes. There is a lot of reading for each day but I find most of it interesting, even if I am sometimes overwhelmed with the amount.

I have to take the math placement test next week. This will tell me what math classes I can take this summer and weather I am taking 2, 3, or 4 classes.

I am also now actively searching for an internship position. I am hoping to work through a library or museum for the next couple of semesters.

And finally, other than the math classes, I have 9 classes left to take for graduation. In other words, in 1 year 2 months I will have graduated. It is really truly happening.

Is it here yet?

These long nights leave me with to much time to think. Since the holidays haven't been the greatest this year, my thoughts have run to the melancholy (and yes I think of Megamind every time I use that word). In an effort to keep myself busy I have prepped for my upcoming classes, obsessed about last semester's grades, read about 10 books, watched various Bones episodes and other movies, and spent endless hours on the phone to family and friends. But as night fell yet again this evening, I found myself with too much time on my hands and no way to shut off my brain. Thank heavens for school starting on Wednesday. the 6 classes (18 credits) plus the 30 hour work schedule should keep me too busy to have another of these nights for awhile.

Now back to Eve Dallas, hopefully her and Roarke can keep my mind a bit more occupied now that I have written all this down.

Tough Decisions....

So the giddiness still hasn't subsided as I opened my first Christmas gift....

A KINDLE!

from my boss. Now I am trying to decide between Gelaskins. So help me:

A:

OR B:

thank heavens for dictionaries!

Have you ever seen the 1993 Melanie Griffeths movie Born Yesterday? The character Billie Dawn tries to read a difficult book and has to carry a dictionary around with her to understand all the words. In one scene she is in a library and has to go to the big dictionary on a pedestal to look up words every couple of sentences. (I tried to find a video of this scene but it doesn't seem to be online anywhere)

Anyway, my life seems to be playing a very similar track as I try to read the Harry Potter series in French. I can't believe how frustrated I get as I am looking up words or verb tenses every single sentence. *sigh* I am determined though. I will make it through.


P.S. Grades came out.... While not my greatest semester I am told that a 3.5 is not a bad GPA for a semester and that the B- I got is sassy. Now all I have to do is turn my I in french into a real grade and I will be good to go. :)

The Door is always Open....

It is that time again..... "It's Christmas in Killarney with a the folks at home!"

A Garrison Keeler selection.....

Kate sent me this a couple of months ago and I just now got a chance to read it and wanted to share:

Clara: In the Post Office
by Linda Hasselstrom

I keep telling you, I'm not a feminist.
I grew up an only child on a ranch,
so I drove tractors, learned to ride.
When the truck wouldn't start, I went to town
for parts. The man behind the counter
told me I couldn't rebuild a carburetor.
I could: every carburetor on the place. That's
necessity, not feminism.
I learned to do the books
after my husband left me and the debts
and the children. I shoveled snow and pitched hay
when the hired man didn't come to work.
I learned how to pull a calf
when the vet was too busy. As I thought,
the cow did most of it herself; they've been
birthing alone for ten thousand years. Does
that make them feminists?
It's not
that I don't like men; I love them - when I can.
But I've stopped counting on them
to change my flats or open my doors.
That's not feminism; that's just good sense.

"Clara: In the Post Office" by Linda Hasselstrom from, Roadkill. © Spoon River Publishing, 1987.

Confession......

I am a 31 yr old woman with a woobie (how do you spell that word anyway?) and a teddy bear. I have had a cold for 4 days now and have given in. I wanted my woobie so I pulled it out of the box as the rest of my things were headed into the storage unit tonight.

Now mine isn't one of those tiny baby blanket things that other kids have. My woobie is a king size quilt that I made when I was 18.... with the help of my mother, Sandra Martell, Meg Thorne and maybe even Leslie Taylor.....I can't remember who all helped. It has a blue flannel back and Sesame Street characters on the front. It is tied with bold colored variegated yarn.

I have better and more adult blankets in my collection....but when I don't feel good this is the one I want on my bed. Lol!

So here it is and now I am going to go to sleep and hope I sound better in the morning.... *sigh*

Meloncholy.....

It sets in every once in a while. I think this is the reason I have become an over achiever. I need to be too busy to get this way.