BLOCKED!

Omfg I am blocked I am blocked I am blocked blocked blocked blocked.

Aaaaaaaaauuuugh.

Ever had a story inside your head that is so wonderful, so magical, so heartbreakingly genius that it's practically splitting you in two?

Ever had a character who's so real and so conflicted that you find yourself talking to that person and arguing over whether or not they're going to let you tell their story? And in the end, you have to agree upon a truce to share your head with them so they don't try to possess you and take over your life?

Or, have you ever gotten to a fork in the road (metaphorical, of course) that has about twenty different directions you can go...and none of them "feel" just right?

That's pretty much where I'm at. My story is gumming up the gears, my characters have all gone on strike and the little writer in my mind is sitting down in the middle of the road and sobbing into her hands in bereft self-doubt.

These are the life and times, people.

This is what it's like to write a novel.

...I sincerely hope we both (my story and I) survive to tell the tale.

Things.

Okay, so I've concluded (based on past advice from my longtime writing idol and bosom facebook friend, Suz B., as well as some thoughts of my own rendering) that I need to start blogging again as often as possible.

This is for two reasons: One, as a daily warm up to keep my fingers limber for the task at hand--as though putting in countless hours each day at work typing up docs orders and diagnoses as complicated in spelling as the elusive hematochezia...which I can't help laughing at because it sounds like "toe cheese"...but in actuality it's a very serious ailment and not funny at all. Heh--and...where was I?

Oh yes. Point number two, which was that if I don't keep blogging and something terrible--such as hematochezia, or something not nearly as hilarious sounding but equally dire--were to happen to me, the world might pass on never knowing the inner workings of my fabulous mind.

So here it is, today's quintessential blog, (never really grasped the semantics of that word fully, but love using it because it just sounds so important. Almost like it's the perfect embodiment of all words meaning "totally awesome".) in which I will unburden myself from a few things I've been meaning to get off my metaphorical chest:

1. I know this isn't really shocking, but I'm obsessed with really stupid made for TV movies. Especially ones that appear on the Scifi channel, like the Ginger Snaps series. Horrible acting? Yes. Can I stop watching? I'll try...

2. I've always been secretly envious of people who can crank out a masterpiece and manage to surprise everybody. I'm not talking about those famous serial killers, who once they've been revealed all their friends and neighbors are like, "Oh my gosh, but he seemed so... nice. So harmless!" Then again, maybe I am. Because one day, I'd like to write a book that gets made into a movie or heck, even a TV show, and I'll be shooting the bull on Craig Ferguson and all my friends and former classmates back home will be all, "Wow, is that the weird girl from eighth grade biology? Never thought she'd ever amount to anything spectacular."

3. For the past several Years, I've had a secret crush on Neal McDonough. I don't know if it's the cool, collected exterior...or the Lemon Head charm... whatever it is. He's hot. And I would totally go see a romantic comedy starring him, providing there are also guns and stuff in it.

4. My former professor sent me an e-mail yesterday asking when I was going to turn in my internship paperwork, and I had a tiny, momentary nervous breakdown. Because I graduated like, six months ago. It was exactly like one of those dreams you have where you're back in high school and it's graduation...and they tell you that you have to take high school all over again, even though you're now twenty five and married. But this one was worse, because I wasn't entirely certain she was kidding.

5. I have like thirty followers on Twitter, even though I've only posted stuff on there like, twice. Instead of being flattered by this, I'm really a bit creeped out. In fact, it's recently become a habit to look both ways before I get into the car.

6. My life really isn't that interesting. But you probably already knew that.

7. Sometimes, I have no idea what day it is. Yesterday this woman came into the hospital and she was like, "Oh, I was here on June 10th, dearie. So you can find my records, right?" And I said, "Sure, no problem. Those don't drop out of the server until they're like a month old." She looked at me like I was sassing her, but I honestly wasn't being sarcastic. I just happen to live in a black hole where time and space have little or no meaning.

Anyway, that's about all I can come up with at the moment. These posts will get better as I practice more. I can almost promise.

Comin Out!

I'm writing this with my iPod, so I'll be brief. In fact, if I'm really lucky by the time I've finished writing this I'll be ninety.
Anyway, it's time I came clean about why I suck at updating. You see, dear friends... I'm writing a book.
There. I've said it. Feel free to mock me with impunity.

Oh, and one last thing: Stephanie Mayer can suck it. That is all.

Why Being "Gifted" Totally Blows (Part Tres)

Somehow, I survived through years of this internal torture. I had muddled through, somehow, and I was only a semester or two of classes away from graduating. I was going to be the first woman in my family to get a college degree. I applied for graduation in the late summer, and cried tears of joy because even I honestly never thought that I would make it thus far. But a part of me whispered that even though I was close enough to spit across the graduation day platform (hypothetically), I didn’t deserve to be set free of my own personal academic purgatory. I still had to pay for my sins.

But the part of me that was desperate to prove myself, and to finally finish, said “yeah, you can do this!” That part, which was so desperate to be done feeling like I didn’t belong, like I was constantly struggling just to be average, said “just make it through this last semester, and you’ll be fine.”

Now we come to the climax of this tale: my ultimate struggle to graduate, to conquer my inner bad student, and to escape with my life.

I can't even tell you how tempted I am to stop trying, to embrace my strengths and just be happy with what I have. To go on working, and just let the skills I’ve learned be enough proof of my capabilities. I can't tell you how often, even now being so close, I have to stop myself from thinking that I'll never be able to finish, that I’m just not college material.

At this point, even with so much on the line, I'm past trying to succeed. I'm just trying to survive. I can beg for understanding, but it will be for a lifetime of academic transgressions. I have become a chronic academic underachiever, in danger of failing the final test of life.
But I've been in danger of failing, in one way or another, for the past four-and-a-half years. I was in danger of failing before I even set foot on this campus. The feeling is terrifying, humbling and totally demoralizing, but it’s not new.

I know that I'm not what you might call a "good" student. But I have learned that I can be pragmatic, hilarious, successful, hard-working, and confident. And I know that everything happens for a reason, even though I might despair at not knowing why. So I can't say that I regret my actions during my academic career. I can't promise to become the kind of student that I'm not. Because if it hadn't been for the decisions I made, I might have been a great student. But I believe I would've also been a less fascinating person. And a MUCH suckier writer.

Why Being "Gifted" Totally Blows (Part Deux)

At [University], I quickly found that in this new, hard-core scholarly world, even my frantically renewed academic efforts meant little or nothing. Dozens of kids around me in each class could dance circles around me academically; they knew it, and I knew it. Though I wasn't remotely what someone would call stupid, for the first time in my life, I felt stupid.

During the first semester of my freshman year, one of my advisors thought it would be fun to put me in an advanced mathematics class. I failed that class with flying colors. I know now that I didn't have the foundation, or the discipline to put four hours of study per day into a subject that I couldn’t begin to understand, but it broke me all the same.

For me, that moment, the moment where I first realized that I could actually fail, was my emotional undoing. I had never come close to failing a class before, never done anything that was so academically irrevocable. Suddenly, I found myself wracked with fear every time I took a class that wasn't already included in my set of skills. I didn't see a challenge as learning something new and exciting, but as another chance for me to fail; another chance for me to be "less than."

This rationale would probably make no sense to the average person, especially if they've never found themselves being defined by a grade. But it made sense to me, because during my formative years, I wasn’t ever defined by anything else.

As I was experiencing the onset of academic self-loathing, I was also constantly on the prowl for other ways I could distinguish myself, ways I could feel proficient to offset my malfunction as a student. I also needed money. So, I started working thirty or more hours a week, in addition to my classes (and sometimes, instead of my classes). I was always a hard worker, and being good at my job got me the praise I felt I needed. I started to value myself by how much I could earn, and classed seemed more and more trivial, because I couldn’t perceive an immediate return on my efforts.

This was all well and good, until the exhaustion of a constant work-study struggle for survival set in.

And because I couldn't hate my job (because it fed me, naturally) I started to hate school. I blamed it for making me feel like my best wasn't good enough. I blamed school for trying to fit me into a mold that I felt I would never fit into.

Makeover.

Why Being "Gifted" Totally Blows (Part One)

I'm not what you might call a "good" student. When I was five, they—“they” being the powers that be of Oregonian academia—pulled me out of kindergarten and announced to my parents that I was "intellectually gifted." After that, I was never allowed to be normal again. I was put in special, after school programs for the "TAG" (Talented and Gifted) kids at my school. At the age of seven, I was forced to boil colored water in beakers and recite geography while my friends played outside.

Middle school started, and I had every hope of being one of the "cool," normal girls. Instead, I was placed in a special homeroom where we had to read Great Expectations (unabridged) and write a hundred pages of "reflective journaling" on what we thought, during a period where other kids got to socialize and play tic-tac-toe. It’s a wonder I don’t hate writing. Though I still hate Great Expectations.

My freshman year of high school, I declared that I'd had enough of being solely classified by my peers as a “smart” kid. You see, I happened to know that deep inside, there was much more than academics to me. I was also a funny kid. A talented, artistic kid. A kid who was royally sick of being pandered to and forced to enter spelling bees and adult writing contests. So I rebelled. I ran for student body office and joined three different clubs. A type of nerdyness still, yes. But I no longer had to be the "smart girl".

In fact, I had made myself so busy with all of the extracurricular stuff that my grades began to suffer. I also started to be treated like a human being. I learned to talk like a teenager instead of using four-syllable words as a rule. And I had fun. I grew socially, and actually started to become my own person. But I’d stopped writing.

By the time I was wrapping up high school, I had become so wrapped up in not being a “smart” kid that I’d forgotten how to study. I'd learned early on that if I didn't do any of my homework, I could still make B's and finally get left alone—for the most part—by those teachers who were looking for "Blue Chip" students to raise and pick on. I could have friends, and a life. But I also found that I could no longer remember how to do complex equations or place all of the countries in Africa onto a map.

When I applied for a prestigious university, I knew my chances of being accepted anywhere impressive were slim. I wanted to go to BYU, for reasons even I didn't fully understand. Now, I realize that I was driven to live somewhere far away from home, so that I could start a fresh academic slate, and fill it with mediocrity. All I had ever wanted was to be one of the “normal” students, as I hadn’t had that even in high school, because I had still been remembered as “that third grade prodigy who won all those writing contests.” However, when I was actually accepted to a good university, I didn't count on the fact that my life-long problem of feeling "too special" and "too smart" would instantly become moot, even without self-sabotage.

Bored = New Blog

http://vandersun.wordpress.com/

Academic Karma Rears its Ugly Head

I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize for everything I've ever said about school. I like school... school is my friend. Nice University, please don't bite me.

So, yeah. This semester has been like the train that goes through the intersection that you're sitting at, hoping that it will be just a few cars because you're already late for work and you really don't have time to sit and watch as the many graffitti'd boxes on wheels go by... but just your luck it's always the forty-five car train that seems to have no end and is all empty cars anyway so wtf do they have that many to begin with....

That's what it's been like. The whole semester. One ridiculous and totally unnecessary (not to mention irritating) delay after the other. Road blocks at every turn, and the promise of VERY severe consequences if I step out of line even ONCE. The problem, of course, being that I've gotten so used to making my own rules that I can't necessarily even remember where the line I'm supposed to be in is...

Just so you know, (and this is merely for posterity) I'm learning my lesson. A lesson that is hard, uncheatable, and apparently, worth about 35% of my overall grade. Yikes.

Double Deuce

In exactly four minutes, I will be 22 years old.

So yeah, that's cool. But what have I accomplished? Well, er... hummm... Let's make a list:

When I was in 6th grade I won a writing contest for high school students, and I think I got published in a book of short stories somewhere, but good luck finding it

I walked at 8 months, which means it only took me 240 days to figure out how to stop falling down. "Take that gravity, booyah!" I would have said, if I could speak.

One time I saved a kid who was almost drowning.

I didn't quite suck at snowboarding as much as I thought I would the last time I went.

When I was ten, I got up in front of like 5,000 people and sang "Hero" by Mariah Carey. I think that was when I was too young to be scared out of my mind of singing in front of large groups.

I won DECA State two years in a row, in Financial Managment Decision Making. I never studied, and I hate banks.

I've been to Disney World twice.

I once got to participate in a Pirate ship activity that involved throwing cannonballs.

I've been to Nassau.

A few months ago, I finally got to go to Graumann's Chinese Theater. Matt Damon has freakishly small hands.

I graduated high school and went on to college. Trust me, where I come from, that's way cool.

I kissed the 2004 national DECA president on live television.

I've been on TV lotsa times. Lame, KBYU TV.

I have still never been arrested.

I once drove Hawthorne Heights to a haunted house, and made up a story that made the base player scream like a little girl.

When I was in high school, Reel Big Fish came into Coldstone while I was working and I had them sign my timecard for my brother.

I've never drank alcohol, smoked, or puked in a sock drawer.

I've written about 5 book outlines, but still no proposals.

I almost pierced my belly button, once. (Robbie wouldn't let me, but I would have)

I lived in Hawaii, and jumped off waterfalls almost every day after work.

I lived in Vail, and it was freaking cold.

I tripped over Shaun White.

I can play one song on the guitar. I don't know the words yet.

I have two of the coolest brothers EVER.

I made friends with a four year old who doesn't like ANYBODY. And I did it with cheese.

I could sing the entire score of Phantom of the Opera, with lyrics, when I was 8.

I taught roughly 60 people how to salsa dance one summer.

I once taught someone my own version of the discussions, three days before I never saw her again. I wonder if she ever read the book I gave her.

I lived in a nudist colony camp for a week when I was 14, but there was a strict "clothes on in front of visitors" policy. Thaaankfullyyy...

I've done nine internships.

My mom still doesn't know about the time I got in trouble at girls camp for stealing 40 lbs of green beans. We gave em back! Eventually.

I go to BYU, I'm over 21, and I'm still single!

I still talk to my best friend from when I was 12.

I still haven't graduated, and I don't care if I was supposed to.

I have remained alive and relatively healthy for 21 years, 23 hours, and five minutes. And still breathing!

And now, for my greatest accomplishment of all, I am going to try to go to bed before midnight!!! (A first in a very long time)

Why I Never Learn My Lesson:

I would just like to take a brief moment to say, HA. Ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha. This goes out to all the hundreds of students who waste time studying every day. Those who camp out in the library, who give up opportunities to grab pizza on the way to (or in lieu of) classes, and those who don't date because they "are too busy with school".

I am here to tell you that all of these "time proven" and "classic" strategies of study are overrated. And I MIGHT get thrown into Karma hell for saying this, but it's true this semester. At least for me.

Can I get a witness that I did not go to class for at least 1/3 of the semester, not because I had any truly pressing engagements or emergencies, but mostly because I just "didn't feel like it"? Or that I stayed up all night the week of finals watching Youtube videos and knitting, instead of cramming? For one of my finals, I literally just walked in and took it without looking at a book beforehand. But did this stop me from having a positive attitude? No, it DID NOT!

Alas, my friends. I fear that I may be permanently ruined by my continuous occurences of freak academic luck. If we had skin on our teeth, as the adage says, mine would probably be gone by now, due to frequently catching the edge of an grade with minimal effort on my part. It only adds insult to the injuries of fairness that I got an A in almost every class. Indeed. I am probably going to be punished for this in the long run.

But for now, I'm not sorry!

Why NOT World Peace?

***Disclaimer: This post is probably not a good idea for people who are narrow-minded, overly judgmental of 3am blog posts, or who are smarter than me.***

If I may preach a bit:

People always say that life is full of choices.

Why is it that when beauty pageant contestants are asked what their one wish would be, they always seem to say World Peace? Does this seem a little too consistent to anyone else, like maybe they've all visited the same lobotomy doctor? Why not an end to famine, or an end to American obesity? Or heck, if you're going to go that far into the realm of "anything's possible" lobotomized thinking, why not just say "World Happiness" and leave it at that. I'm sure it would lead to World Peace, but the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example,
there might technically be peace in America, but that doesn't mean that thousands don't go to sleep hungry. And loads of people commit suicide every day.

As Aldous Huxley suggested in a Brave New World, peace all over the world won't necessarily mean that everything is going to be okay. We could have peace and subjugation, like in Orwell's 1984. Or, we could one day reach peace simply because we've become too compliant to fight with each other. Maybe we're all going to drown ourselves in pleasure until we're either too fat or too stoned to care about anything, much less fighting for things we want or think we need.
Whatever the case, (and I know that this is an unpopular point of view) I don't necessarily feel that peace is the answer to all of our problems. An end to fighting will not end hatred for the small-minded, just as an end to discussion will not end a difference in opinion.

I started thinking along this line of topic earlier tonight when Tara asked me what I would end, if I could end anything in the world. I thought about it for about two seconds. "Dishonesty" was my answer. In this, I meant that not only would people no longer feel the need or be able to lie to one another, but to themselves as well. Just think, about 70% of the world's problems would become that much simpler. No more murders going unpunished, because all we would have to do is ask someone if they did it, and they would respond. No more closet pornography addicts
masquerading as husbands and fathers. Much less gossip, because people would only say what they knew to be true. No more relationship grief, no more cheating. Dating would be a cinch: "Do you like me?" "No." "Okay then, thanks for playing." No more crappy talk shows. Lawyers would be nearly obsolete. No more international terrorism: "Do you have a bomb?" "No." "Okay then, have a nice flight, Mr. Abdul." No more girls pretending to eat. No more wondering whether what a person is saying is genuine.

I think in all the world, the thing that has caused me the most pain over time has been not knowing the truth until it is too late, or being mislead by people I trusted. Which is not to say that I've never lied. I have, and I know the shame that comes from knowingly presenting the
opposite of truth, and the effects it can have on the world. If I could go back in time, I think the ONLY things I would change are things I have said that were either untrue in general, or untrue to myself as a person. There is no despair greater than hindsight, the knowledge that you went down a path without letting yourself truly see what you were doing, or thinking about what your choices meant.

Why not just re-evaluate some things? Maybe we're not all really living the lives we seem to lead. In fact, I'm sure a lot of us aren't. If we all took a second to question our motives, or ask ourselves if we really believe the things that we say, wouldn't things like war and hatred just kind of die out on their own? And if they didn't, at least we wouldn't have to walk around in so many circles before we came up with a solution to each of the world's problems.

Stress = School + Time x Apathy. Solution = Comic

Avatars

Hey, it's me if I were made by a crazy Japanese animation person!

Abnormal Malady

My heart is pounding, my breath comes in shorts gasps. My head feels as if it's about to explode. I can't remember a time when I did not feel this way, as though memories of the light and life that used to be mine have been snuffed out, along with my ability to breathe normally. My hands shake, my voice is a scarred and unrealistic representation of itself- or maybe it's really someone else's. My neck wants to collapse with the burden of holding my pounding head erect, and I never want to leave this bed again to venture out into the cruel world that caused this terrible state.

What is wrong with me, you ask? Is it unrequited love? Anger? Jealousy? Hate?

No. It's a freaking head cold. And I swear on everything both holy and desecrated that if it moves into my chest, there won't be words for the suffering that follows. Call me dramatic, but I hate being sick more than anything else in the entire world. More than being tired, wet, cold, or drowning. Seriously, it sucks. Pity me, cause I don't know if I'm going to make it!

Treatise on School

In this, my friends, I'll be brief.



School is a bore,

And feels like a chore

Instead of before,

When I loved to explore

What was in store.

There was knowledge galore

And now, I implore

Each day is a war,

For class I ignore

I don't go anymore.

My money I pour

Don't check my test score

My head's a dull roar,

And school makes me snore

So let's go to war,

And rebel some more

"It's on!" will we roar

As we even the score,

With our once paramour

And school will be nevermore.

Stolen Philosophies

"The best way to waste your life, ... is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate.” - Chuck Palahniuk

I love this. It's what I'm all about lately. Don't think. Don't study things out overmuch. Don't worry what is going to happen if I choose A, or what could've happened if I chose B. Watch, and learn, and be. Reporting is what I do. I see subtle hints in the world, themes and quirks that make up life- and I express it the way I can. Living is what I have often studied, but not truly done until now. Enjoyment can be found in the simplest things. People have been saying it for centuries, and why disagree? Why not just seek instead to find those things for ourselves? I have never been an advocate of the "Life should be easy" school of thought, but I do not believe that life should be automatic. Or programmed. Like everything that is divine in man's experience, great events in life should be surprising, revolutionary, and profound. I endeavor to live an existence comprised of such moments. To record my profound moments of inspiration as if they are Iliads or Odysseys of epic proportions. Because for me, they are.

What can I say that hasn't already been said?

This pretty much says it all: everything there is to know about me right now.

Pen Holder, Flyleaf

I feel your eyes crawling over me
As though I am something more than me
But I don't have anything good enough to say
I did not make myself this way

I'll show you what he did,
But I won't take the credit
It's not mine anyway
I just held the pen that day

And I don't deserve this
This time right now
It's not something for which I can take the bow
And I don't deserve this
It wasn't me
I can't take glory for something that I can't be
I don't deserve this

I know what perfection is like
And I cannot stand before its might
And I'm so far from what you think that I must be
I just drown myself in mercy

And all the art that I supposedly create
Is simply a faded reflection of something He's already made

Endings and Beginnings

When I someday sit down and write the story of my life, it will be merely the highlights--the parts that I remember, that have stood out in some way because of their importance. Moments like this, they seem so crucial when they happen, until a little time passes and then they pale in comparison with the things that last. These moments I'm referring to are the endings.

No one really knows, when a saga begins, if it will be one that continues forever. Was it a chance meeting between two heavanly beings, destined to collide and form a greater body much later in history? Do two events merely brush for a moment, and then continue on barely worse for the wear? I submit that you'll never really know if you've begun an ending, or a beginning, until it ends. Or, it doesn't.

This happens in every aspect of life. Some seem to have it figured out from the beginning, but really, they just chose right on the first try. Others of us locate our destinies by the trial and error method, finding out what is wrong only when we hit the wall and have to go back again. I seem to do this a lot more often, and in my search for the path that is truly mine to wear, I seem to have covered more territory. In this way, I am an accidental explorer of possible destinies, a traveler on walkabout who often becomes lost but is not really lost at all, because the destination is as yet unknown. Yes, in this way, I tend to earn a bit more than my share of scrapes and scars, but I also end up with more stories to tell at the end of the day.

And today is an ending. One that I will not regret, for I cannot have known. It's true that there will always be second-guessing, on whether I should have turned back much earlier, or brought along less baggage that I will now have to lug all the way home, or perhaps whether the choice to pursue this particular path was even a strong bet. In the end, all I can do is shrug, rub some ointment on it, and shoulder my pack for another beginning. One which will hopefully end differently, or not at all.

Faking It

Whenever a door closes, another one (or a window) opens. Variations of such. It just wasn't meant to be. Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. You're so much better off without him, her, them. Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened.
Fake it till you make it.

A lot of people say a lot of things about love. Some say it is an illusion, or that there are different levels unseen to the human eye, and each has its own different set of rules. Some also say that it is foolish to give love without receiving it in return, instead going about it in increments, until the person to whom you are giving your heart matches your bet and then raises to the next level. That is the logical economical way of going about loving people, like it's a casino game.

But in my life, I've come to realize a curse I seem to have that's maybe not a curse at all. I seem to always be giving my heart to people who either don't really want all of it, want it only some of the time, or change their minds and try to return it later. Or, I'll want to give it but when I go to look for it, it's gone and I can't seem to remeber who I loaned it to that hasn't yet given it back. Life is funny that way. Great minds are always quoting about how you can choose everything. But there are a lot of things that I find myself doing that I didn't choose. Holding onto things that my mind doesn't want anymore, or fighting against feelings that I can't explain, I don't know where they come from.

I like to think of myself as an independant force, completely in control of my own actions. But sometimes I have to wonder who is really pulling the strings. Because I know it's not me. Or is it just a different version? In times like these, I find that I enter a semi-liquid state. No longer a rock, my feelings change drastically and daily, and I often don't know which way is up. But I pretend I do, because showing my fear and asking for help would be totally unacceptable. So I freeze or I boil, depending on the day. But on the outside, I'm jello. I bounce back from everything that happens to me (or it looks like I do) and wiggle in a cheery way so that no one gets down by being around me. (I actually really do this, in case you've never seen it.) I smile and laugh and sometimes I think am actually a more likeable person when I'm secretly miserable.

Sometimes, I'm proud of my ability to so convincingly fake it until I make it. But I have to wonder, what happens when I do make it, but can't stop faking?