Deep Thoughts

You know what’s weird?

how some people look exactly the same, and by that I mean bear the same expression, in every single photo they are in.

Sweet.

I actually got a real interview with TFA!  I’m surprised but very happy and excited.  I know exactly how I’m going to do my 5 min. lesson, and it turns out that founder and president Wendy Kopp will be giving a lecture here next week, but more on that later.

In closing, a thought:

If love makes every man a poet,

love lost makes every poet prolific.

God Help Me, and, The Colts Are Going to the Super Bowl: Thank You, God, for Caring About Football When There’re Surely So Many Other More Pressing Matters

At a friend’s party this weekend I met a guy named John who graduated last year and now works somewhere in the city (“city,” ha ha!) It recently occurred to me that soon I will no longer be dating students. Well, you know, kid students. Strange. I had all I could do not to tell him all about the Gospel of his namesake. That’s the kind of night it was. And no, I’m not a Bible reader normally–I read it for a Religion class, with a capital “R.”

Then I had the kind of morning where you don’t remember having rearranged your furniture and then you pass out in the shower. That afternoon I considered becoming a “non-drinker” at the age of 21. I’m actually still considering this. Partly because of my horrific morning, but mostly because, unfortunately, I have seen what prolonged overindulgence can do to a person, and I don’t want that to happen to me. That will not help me live to see the year 3000 2100.

Plan C

Be a farmer.

I think I’d like that.  I like dirt.  I like getting up before sunrise.  I like solitude and nature.  Animals are okay, but I think I’ll just have cats and dogs.  And a horse or two or three. Maybe I’ll have a vineyard in California.

That’d be pretty sweet.

(I’m totally screwed.)

Plan B?

I’ve been contemplating what I will do if I do not get to work with TFA, which, seeing as my phone interview was less than stellar, is not unlikely. Barring any unforeseen extenuating circumstances, I sort of have a plan.

Move to either Portland, Oregon or Seattle, get a cheap flat, a job in food services and live.  Maybe write.  Hopefully spend some time volunteering, since I desperately feel the need to un-self-center myself (as college has so thoroughly self-centered me).

My problem is that I’m not great at anything.  I’m perfectly well-rounded.  A round little ball with nothing outstanding.  I’m not good at anything particular and I don’t care about anything particular.  I can do a little dance, play a little piano, a little flute, a little clarinet, write a little, run all right, play tennis okay, play various other sports, understand politics, understand history, understand philosophy…. but I’m not great at anything–and nothing really turns me on.

I can’t believe it’s come to this.  I mean, I always assumed I’d be good at something, or really care about something.  Anything: medicine, law, journalism, animals, cooking, writing, history, politics…. but no.

I don’t really see the point of the rest of my life.

Post-Interview Let Down

I just want to sleep for the rest of the day. I feel unqualified to leave my room.

And it wasn’t even a bad interview.

Doubts and Uncertainties With Respect to the Internet

I’m sitting here reading Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, which I coincidentally stumbled upon when looking alphabetically for the work of Adrienne Rich and which is also, coincidentally, required reading for Mysticism, which I was going to take, but instead opted to retake Calculus.

And it’s that thing where you read something you could have written, but was written nearly one hundred years before you were even born, and it’s like a hand reaching out to you from the past… but not from the grave, kind of, from the air or something.

[That isn't my metaphor, but I can't remember where I heard it.  Maybe in "Death and the Maiden" or maybe in Letters, which would be too ironic for words.]

Anyway, the point is, I’m reading about the importance of solitude and the inward journey and suffering and what not (it really is a great book) and I think, as I have often thought before, the Internet is keeping me from the spiritual benefits of solitude.  Case in point:  I could be laying on my bed thinking about this right now, but instead I blog about it!  And writing.com: why do I want people to rate my work?   To be told I’m all right, that I can do it, that I’m one of them.  Do I really need that?  More productively put, should I need that?

No.  The answer is no and I am going to delete my account momentarily as I have done in the past.  I won’t delete this blog because I know I’ll just start a new one.  I’ve figured that much out.  But I still wonder if I might be better off if I did delete it…

New Apartment

I moved into my new apartment today.

It’s not unlike a hostel: I have my room, I share cooking and cleaning facilities, and I don’t really know anyone but they all seem pretty cool.

I was fine, better than fine, better than I’ve been for a long time… until I started making my bed and I realised: this will be the first time I’ve slept alone at school in two years.

It’s just… weird.

A Great Day and It’s Not Even Noon Yet

This morning I found out two great things:

1.  I will be able to do my thesis paper through my department.  They decided that since I took the optional senior seminar my junior year, a prep class with the honors program and did the work on my own anyway, I’m not a lazy moron after all.  Just a confused moron.  Which is, fortunately for me, acceptable.
2. I got a phone interview with Teach For America! Hooray! I hope I don’t get nervous when they call.  I might write myself a script in case I do!

Forever

means you can apologize any time now.