Exciting News!

I am a featured student reader chosen to represent Holy Cross at the Massachusetts Poetry festival 2009. Check out the link to see my bio featured on the Worcester County Poetry Association's website!

http://wcpa.homestead.com/MASS_POETRY_FEST_2009.html#anchor_72

Silly lil drama-queen moment.

This is probably a poem that will never see a more finished version as it's a bit (read: very) melodramatic, tongue in cheek, cliche with a hint of truth type of thing. Inspired by my coffee cup and a day of GRE studying. Just for fun, no real skill in it (though I do like the end=P). I put this out there for giggles, please dont judge me as a poet based on it, lol.

I can see my advisor crossing out line after line but what the hell, it was fun to write. Dedicated to all the college seniors out there, haha.


Our blood is turning to coffee
As we all suck it down by the pot.
But it seems these days even the caffeine
Saps my energy, this dark liquid
Becoming the epitome of wishful thinking.
This year is my anemia, leaving me
Lethargic and wistful, for the days before
These standardized tests took my name,
Tattooed a number on my skin
To submit humbly to the overlords,
Who decide what seems like life and death.
Wisdom has been supplanted,
For 12 point font, one page only,
Resumes are the new IQ
As we fight for what crumbs
Are left to offer, the warehouse is empty,
This is no golden age. Nervousness
Has given way to paranoia,
A save yourself mentality,
Clothed in a business suit and heels.
I’ve got debt, bills to pay,
Socrates, what use are you-
If you can’t keep me employed?
We’re working towards exhaustion
Hollow, ringed eyes, bloodshot,
Coffee breath, panic attack prone,
Here’s to a promising future-
We are the face of tomorrow.

Just gave a dramatic reading to the roommates and pondered sending a copy off to career services who seem to induce panic attacks daily!

=(

So today, two minutes before my alarm went off I woke up. I stretched my arms above my head and then turned my head to the side and then-

CRACK.

And I was hyperventalating in pain, a stabbing pain shooting up the left side of my neck into my skull. My roommate sat up in concern as I was hyperventalating unable to articulate what was wrong. Slowly I sat up and the pain dulled. But then cautiously I tried to turn my head and wham- pain hit.

I soon figured out I could barely move my head up and down or to the left at all without severe pain that left me gasping.

However, it is a Sunday and Chiropractors aren't open. Soon, out of concern my roommate offered to drive me home in a desperate attempt to see if my dad could help me get help. I couldnt even manage to shower, and getting dressed included more sharp pains and gasps. I was miserable and worried.

Once home my dad opened the phone book looking for any chiropractor with an emergency number since our own one didn't pick up!

Luckily a man who works five minutes from our house agreed to see me even though I am not an established patient and the office was closed. He even had to bring his son in with him but he came and opened the office up for have a look at me. Thank GOD.

Well, it was some strain/sprain type of deal. He x-rayed and tried to do adjustments but couldnt even get me in a position where he could work on me in the most minor way. The smallest movements induced pains that had me crying out, and literally in tears. I hated it. I can sit through hours of tattooing without crying or whimpering or anything, not the biggest baby- yknow? I rarely even go to a doctor but it was so intense it was an involuntary reaction when ever the slightest move brought on this pain.

Basically he tried to do what he could to relax the muscles to stop the horrible spasms of pain but ultimately he said i definitely could not lie down, my neck is unable to extend whatsoever and even just sitting or standing the weight or my head on my neck is causing more damage. So I cant sit up, cant lay down.

I have to be reclined at just the right angle that I am not in pain, and once I find that I must ice my neck for twenty minutes at a time every waking moment I can. And not move. Except I have to to get new ice packs. When standing or sitting I hold my head awkwardly forward and to the side and even propped on a pillow I hold it an an awkwad angle because I am so scared of causing mysef pain. So even when not experiencing spasms my neck aches horribly, like there is just no way of being comfortable.

So after that we went to get some ice packs and home to find some way of having me reclined somehow for long periods of time. My dad also has a very bad back so luckily he had this very special foldable back chair that reclines so he let me take that back to my dorm. But I pretty much might have to sleep in it because even if I could lay down in a bed you move too much and I would turn over and wake up gasping in pain. So I need to either be on a couch or reclining chair type deal to sleep, and not laying down but propped.

So here I am stuck in a chair. Even getting up to change ice packs is an ordeal as i move slowly and cautiously so as not to risk the small movement that could set off spasms, they have happened twice so far and are just as bad as this morning. I grimace and have to breathe in and out and not move until it passes and the pain fades. I hate being stuck in a chair, cant drive cant walk around. Thankfully one roomate is still with me or else I would be all alone stuck in a chair. Tomorrow I wont be able to go to my internship and Tuesday I wouldnt be able to dance in my dance class. It sucks.

Also I hate asking people to get me things. I wish Chris were here because I wouldnt feel bad about asking him to help me but he is somehwere very important with his family. I wont lie I'm pretty jealous, even though I couldn't go anyway, now my plans for the day are canceled and I am stuck in a chair.

I dont really feel comfortable enough to really focus on schoolwork and really just want to sleep so I dont have to feel the uncomfortable feeling/pain but I must keep icing. Sitting in a chair and icing.

He also found some mild arthritis in my neck which he said at my age there should be absolutely no sign of that no matter how minor, and now it is mild/minor but just the fact that it can be seen is probably not a very good sign. At all.

I dont want to be crippled =( I dont want to have scoliosis that makes things like this happen more easily than in everyone else. I dont want to be stuck in a chair while my roommates and the rest of the world goes about it's daily life!

Stress

So, there really isn't much to update on except work beginning to pile up.

I have rough drafts of seven poems for my thesis and need at MINIMUM thirteen for each semester. So if none of them get thrown out, which is very unlikely, I am in good shape. However, I have a bad feeling about these poems and this thesis is already making me very stressed as I really don't like what I've written for it so far and am much less inspired in general than I was in my poetry classes. It seems I have to constantly really search for something to write on and then I dont really like the end product anyways, even after reworking several poems tediously. The emotion just isn't in them anymore. This is not promising.

As for grad school apps, they are on hold for now as I need to basically wait until my GRE test and then resume is finished as those are the next steps. I am trying to get the resume looked at this Thursday. Most of the logistics are done (entering info, making online application accounts) and I have a rough draft of an essay which will probably need to be butchered over and over, but it's a start. Then come getting the recs. So, resume, GREs, essay and recs. Probably in that order. I just am impatient to have it all settled and done with, I dont like it hanging over my head. Also, the GREs are positively petrifying, I'm so scared I won't make the minimum score for UNC.

My first paper looms, due Oct 2 and we haven't gotten an assignment yet. It's for Literary Theory, a class which I feel most uncomfortable in. Extremely boring and soporific (GRE word!) and I still don't know the point of the class at all. It's been all philosophy so far and so I'm at a completely loss as to what I'm supposed to be gleaning from it in terms of literature and/or theory. What theory? No one has uttered the word theory since Day 1. Have I been in the wrong class? What scares me is I can't fathom what this paper will be on, much less actually writing an intelligent paper for this class. And my advisor is urging me to get a grad school rec from THIS professor.

Which I'm totally for -_- Or not.

Lastly, I thought work would calm down with a new woman in the office taking over the admin assist. position. However I have work up to my ears! I will be busy my entire shift and have projects that will take days. Will this never end? And I didn't get my last paycheck which isn't exactly very motivating.

So I'm a little stressed, mostly over lit theory and GREs at the moment.

General Update

So, I'm still filling in for the Administrative Assistant here at work, despite the fact that classes are started and I have gone down from 35 hours per week to 9. When I'm not here, there is no secretary for our department. Which is well, insane. I was going to get a fellow work study student but it turned out she cant start work until Oct 1 because she's not work study approved. Lame. But still I am hoping the upped responsibility will pay off in various ways and it's not really that bad lately.

Anyway, someone new will be starting the 14th! HOORAY! Though since they are new this could CAUSE as many problems as it solves, but I'm going to try not to think that way. So today everyone is trying to figure out logistics because we are switching all the offices around for complicated reasons and furniture must be moved and measured and such. So in preparation I WAS going to clear "my" desk off. However, then it was deicded that maybe this desk wouldn't be moving, so i just stopped with that major project after getting it organized.

The point is that I found quite a bit of random things buried on my desk. Nothing too important but still, there is a reason why organizational skills are valued I guess. The desk wasn't that bad of a mess, but still it was neatly cluttered so I'm happy to have it cleaner for the new woman coming in. Also, hiding away all the job applications that were lying around was probably tactful of me.

In other news, I have yet to meet with my thesis advisor yet but have five poems written to show him. But since I haven't really met with him I can't gauge that "class" yet. Though it's a professor I've taken since freshman year, my advisor and like my fav professor so I'm sure it will be amazing.

My Holocaust class is turning out to be my favorite, as strange as that sounds. I don't enjoy hearing about really emotionally difficult material but it feels like an extremely important class. Ever since going to the Holocaust museum and seeing that one quote I've searched for again and again to no avail, I have really wanted to do something more. It was simply a letter from a boy named David, asking that whoever found it remember that he was human, that he existed, that he lived. Part of me felt the need to honor that, to remember, to remind myself that we need to make an effort to remember them, because that's what they wanted, really, when faced with extermination, they wanted us to know they were as human as anyone else, and to not let them be forgotten.

I wish I could find that quote, the boy's name was David somethingand I remember exactly where it was, on the wall in the entrance to the hall of Remembrance, but despite the frantic searching I can't find it. I know the end was worded some thing like "Remember that a boy named David ____ lived." And although it was simplest of requests, it touched me so deeply that facing certain death, that was his request.

The trip Yad Vashem left one of the strongest impressions of my whole time in Jerusalem on me, and for some reason, as I dont know what good it will do overall to take this class, it feels like at least one person, generations and decades later, is honoring his request, and the more I learn the more I realize people don't know. We think we remember, but so many people have no idea the context it happened in, how it happened, what happened. how can we remember them properly without being educated on it. I cant speak for everyone but form what I found I didn't know even after being to the museum, I'd say most people have an unfortunately simplistic understanding of what went on.

Maybe I'm dwelling on it a bit but it's a class that is really touching me emotionally. And that feels like no matter what the grade, it'll be worthwhile.

Dance class is brutal, not because it's any more demanding than I'd expect a dance class either. It shouldn't be hard at all really, but it is. I'm woefully unflexible, despite years of dance, have NO abdominal muscles (lying flat I can barely lift to sitting without using my arms/hands) and because I am not overweight, did not ever even think to consider how i am grossly out of shape when it comes to physical activity. Watching me in class you would- well, let's not go there. I'll be at least trying to stretch every night from now on. This is ridiculous and frustrating. Also, the dining hall isn't helping matters. Period. And I try to be reasonable. today i went and had a bagel. With a bit of butter, no cream cheese or anything. Exactly what I would have had at home.

Literary Theory has improved in that I was awake for the entire class and following most of it, though I really didn't see how what we were talking to really applied to literary theory when it just felt like going over the main point of the work we read and finding how the text exmeplified the author's main idea- i.e where it shows that __________.

But I was awake.

Off to internship in a bit, hoping it stays interesting and I stay awake for it! Somehow despite the good night's rest I have, sleepiness overtakes me at the most inopportune moments, for seemingly no reason. I am just unlucky. Or the universe has chosen me to toy with. Or some other reason that is clearly not my fault.

Internship Day Two

I really must insist on gushing about my internship a bit more.

Today I had to take little slips of paper and fill in data about each incoming piece. now that work is mostly tedious and very simple BUT getting to see all the stuff that i'm recording and actually handling it to get the info is AMAZING. Anyway, here's the highlight of today:

In the pile of manuscripts I saw this letter that had beauitful handwriting and leaned into read it. I believe it was from some time around or priot to 1850. It read a bit like a love letter, the writer was asking someone not to forget them and to think of them and the places they had been together - that was the gist of it except it was poetic in that not-really-trying-to-be-poetic- i just-write-beautifully-all-the-time-way people in the 1800's had about them. It was very touching to read. The coolest part was there was a lock of brown hair that was threaded and twisted into this intricate design and pinned with the little paper cutout thing in the center of the design to hold it there. It was common to put locks of hair in lockets but I had only vaguely heard of including locks in letters, apparently it was a very significant thing to do and if done with a male it meant it was SERIOUS between them. However, this letter was between two women, which was interesting. I think they were just very very good friends or maybe relatives, but it was so perfectly preserved like someone had made it today. A two hundred year old lock of hair in a letter begging not to be forgotten and here I am reading it two hundred years later. AMAZING.

I wondered if the person had written back. I wonder how they knew each other and what the connection was. I wished I had the entire history and why they were being seperated, it really just made this random name seem alive. the lock of hair wasn't creepy or anything, it was smooth and still a very beautiful shade of chesnut brown, very neatly kept in its design somehow for almost two centuries!

Other interesting artifacts were papers trying to explain alcohol abuse back when they were just beginning to realize it was abuse, cures for alcohol poisoning, ads selling a "hightech" new moustrap, and a prayer for those fighting in the civil war.

In short, I love my internship.

Day One

First day of class:

1) Jazz dance 1-2: The professor seems really laid back and fun. The clock was running a few minutes slow and she goes "Oh well, why dont we still go by that clock to start since it'll give you a few extra minutes to get here in the morning?" I mean that's rare for a professor. However, she still seems to be very professional. She's classically trained so we get to do some ballet in the warm up and work on alignment and hip placement, using abdominal muscles so it should be a challenge even though I've danced since my posture was alwways horrible. Also, even though it's an intro class we might get to leaps and turns which should be fun, we'll do combinations and across the floor and stretching, which I am beyond thrilled for, since I lost all my flexibility. But I need to go home and find some old dance shoes now.

The work load is manageable, we have to attend two shows outside of class and do a two page critique on each, and then mid term and final project which is a five minute presentation with a 2-3 page paper and choreographing a dance- and we can do it in groups. Awesome.

2) Holocaust on the stage and screen: The professor explained that he is a very laid back intense guy. He said the material is already going to have us really swamped with intense emotions and it will really hit us emotionally so he wants to create a very informal class setting where we can really be open about the material. He really reiterated how hard some of this stuff is going to be to deal with and I believe every bit of it, but he was really relaxed and open with us, and didn't have that intimidating professor attitude AT ALL. For the entire period I was riveted and wide awake, taking notes and even participating. We'll have to give a lot of time to watching things outside of class but the three papers are only 4-5 pages each and then there's a midterm and final. So, it's reasonable and I feel like it will be a very important class to take and a challenge to get through. Which means hopefully it will have an important impact on how I see things.

3) Literary theory: This is my uh-oh class. All the kids who were in Oxford last year are in it so the level of performance in the class is set high just by then. Their writing skills have pretty much been perfected as Oxford really is like academic boot camp. What's worse is I was falling asleep during the whole class. I was frustrated and mortified but nothing I tried would perk me up. I pinched myself, concentrated on taking deep breaths in and out, leaned back into the a/c behind me, tried to take notes to keep me attentive but despite my best intentions I could not focus and my eyes were so heavy. I was miserable because I like the professor and it's an upper level course and this is just NOT acceptable. I also had no idea what he was talking about couldn't really find any interest in what I was trying to follow which was really worrisome. I am just not into abstract theory I guess. I really couldn't grasp exactly WHAT literary theory was but everyone else in the class was taking notes so they had to have gleaned SOMETHING that I was missing. There just didn't seem to be any solid facts or ideas that I could write down so I was utterly lost as to what he was talking about.

It was frustrating and I feel guilty over the whole fiasco but I cant drop it since it's mantadory to have for the english honors program. So it was a bit of a unhappy ending to a really great day. So I guess I'll just work as had as I can and hope for the best. Though if anyone has tps for staying awake, I need them, I had no reason to be suddenly exhausted and usually dont have such a problem so any advice is welcome! Also its a back to back class with the Holocaust class so there isnt any time to grab a coffee!!

So that would be about it for today.

AAS

So I haven't been very good at keeping up with this blog, but I think since the updates are less frequent I'll find a way to send it to people's email for convenience.

So, today was my very first day at my new internship at the American Antiquarian Society in the acquisitions department. Within twenty minutes I was sat down with these small circular pieces of paper from the 19th century. They used to go over the mechanics on the old pocketwatches of the 1800s and were basically labels. Only each watchmaker had elaborate calligraphy and anengraving (picture) on each in such minute detail it boggles the mind. Today we get barcodes, they got art. So these things are really neat despite being pretty small circles of fragile paper. Oh with slits cut in them going around the outside edge. So small, thin, fragile, already preripped to add to my terror.

And I have to write on them. In only number 3 hard pencil, as lightly and eligibly as possible around the edge in small neat letter I must mark the buyer who sold them to us, the fund that paid for them, the date they were recieved, and a special code for how much they cost.

Now, I dont think it would be very professional to say how much that was because the AAS certainly doesn't publish how much it spends and has a code for penciling it on. But lets just say it's more than I could ever, EVER afford to pay back if I damaged them. And me, the volunteer intern wa snot only allowed to touch but to work with them! Now to be fair my supervisor did hover nervously at first but then she realized what she was doing and backed off politely.

Well, nothing ripped but she urged me to take my time which I was MORE than happy to do. Then I was off to have my conservation lesson where the conservationist showed me how she repaired books that I would have thought had seen their last days long, long ago. But those books are so epicially amazing too. They have stuff from the 1600/1700s!!!!!! They have the first bible printed in AMERICA (printed in the Algonquin language actually- to convert them I guess, and the first book printed in america! That's OLD STUFF. And how she fixed them is fascinating, special glues and pastes, and leather and paper thats so thin and fine you can put it OVER the words and still read them just fine.

Then she told me all the rules so that i wouldnt even accident damage or contribute to damage on a book. Surprisingly I wasn't too overwhelmed. She was a nice lady and she complimented my outfit =D.

So then I went on the tour of the place which was pretty tame because although it's a fascinating library it is, afterall, still a library. I learned the founder went for a poverty stricken child given away by his mother to a printer who became a cruel master over him to the richest man in the country in his lifetime. Amazing. I respect that. He was also a huge patriot who printed newspaers during the revolution to incite people to action. So the history of the society is really cool and the building is gorgeous and old and fancy.

That was pretty much all the time I had though, I guess I'll get into it hardcore on Friday. But so far, so good. First day of classes for me is tomorrow so maybe I'll update about that, hopefully!

P.S- Guess I need to have your email addresses if you want it emailed to you. Let me know.