This year started out stormy but skys are a'clearing.  I'm finally to a point where I feel secure about the way things are going right now and where my life is heading.  I've always struggled with doubt and worry about my friends and my future, but I feel like I've finally found my niche.  I've found something I'm passionate about pursuing in college and beyond - my latest career goal is to get a BA and PhD in linguistics and teach at a university.  And I've settled in with more friends (and better friends) than I think I've had since the third grade.  I still have insecurities, but I feel like my problems right now are more about me and less about what's going on around me.  I'm in an all-around good situation, and I'm looking for the positives in everything so that when I hit the bad times, I can do so with unblemished memories of the good times and the hope that all suffering passes. 

I don't update on here nearly as often as I used to.  That's because I'm writing college essays and I've reached the point where I analyze my words to such an extent that I want no one to see them until they are immaculate.

I like the word immaculate.

I think...my life is like an apple.

A yellow one.

College visit report card time!

This week I've visited UGA, OSU, and UTK.  All three of them are on my finalized list of schools I'm applying to (along with Northwestern, UK, USC, and Indiana), and I was interested to see how Ohio and Georgia stacked up against UT.

Here are the results:

University of Georgia, Bulldogs: B-
UGA is hard to describe.  It's simultaneously better and worse than I thought it would be.  The campus and atmosphere are pretty nice, but the school is obviously controlled by football.  Their speakers were surprisingly rude and condescending, as well.  On the other hand, their honors program is very nice – if I can even get into it, which is no guarantee.   I found out almost nothing about their linguistics department, except that only 12 people graduated with a degree in linguistics last year…which is more than some schools, but still a pretty low number.

The Ohio State University, Buckeyes: A
I must say, I was extremely impressed with OSU.  I was apprehensive going in, but immediately I liked Columbus, liked the campus (it's already in the throes of autumn), and liked the general atmosphere.  Opposed to Georgia, which gives no personalized attention to anyone, Ohio gave me an individual tour of the honors dorms, an individual meeting with an admissions rep, an individual course scheduling meeting, and – very amazingly – lunch with the head of the linguistics department, who also gave me an extensive tour of her department, which is one of the top in the country.  It was scary to have to be really alert and asking intelligent questions all day, but I could tell that Ohio really cares about its applicants.  This is even more impressive considering it passed Texas and Michigan as the biggest university in the nation, with some hundred billion students.  That's what it seemed like; a more accurate number is probably 39,000.

University of Tennseesse Knoxville, Volunteers: B-
What is there to say about UT?  It's UT.  There's nothing wrong with it as a school, and it has a decent honors program, a good English department, and an okay interdisciplinary degree in linguistics.  But nothing about it stands out to me, and it doesn't feel like it could be home.  But if I have to stay instate, for some reason, it will be a good option.


Next weekend I visit Kentucky, and one day this month I'm missing school to visit South Carolina.  I haven't scheduled a visit to Indiana yet.  I don't really know much about the school except it has a really top linguistics program.


Aaaand other than all that I have been hanging out with some pretty cool people this week (Jesse, Carlton, Lindsay) and doing random things.  We've been getting really creative in our attempts to try new ways of having fun.  Hopefully we don't get in trouble for our most recent project….ahhh hmm.  But tonight is Sophie/Rachel/Heather's 53^rd birthday party and I'm looking forward to some hardcore fun, ha.  And tomorrow I get to do all the homework I've put off for seven days in the span of about three hours. 


I love you.

Christina

Sometimes I have nothing to write about, but my fingers itch and there it is.  Just strings of words about a day mostly wasted.  I started to write a deeper musing - on the nature of loneliness.  It would have been a pretty good piece, but I don't think my heart was in it.  I just need to write out (like most bloggings) my day's activities, which happen to be pretty mundane.  I'm so sleepy, but over-sleeped, so the words are fuzzy and I'm not revising anything.  Sorry if it's rough or uninteresting:

During my approximate 6 hours of consciousness today, I cleaned my room.  By which, of course, I mean that I took everything from my shelves and drawers and threw it on my floor, and then attempted to put it all back again in some sensible order, trashing whatever artifacts that have become unimportant or obsolete.  Of course, when I make this daring attempt at cleanliness, I know from the outset that the chance of success is very small.  I have only really thoroughly cleaned my room about twice in my life.  Usually I clean in a furious frenzy for about an hour, and then become distracted by something I find which occupies me for so long that by the time I realize that I’ve stopped cleaning I have lost all my fervor.  And then, of course, I’m left with the entire contents of my room strewn across my floor, with maybe one half of one drawer actually put back.  But the mess doesn’t bother me.  At least I know where everything is; I just have to look down and kick around a few stray shoes and notebooks to find things.

Of course, the part of my day spent unconscious was wonderful.  I took three beautiful naps.  Naps are better than cake.  And they don’t make you nearly so fat, except, I suppose, in that you could have been exercising instead.  But since I am a non-exerciser anyway, I don’t really look at it that way.  And naps are luxurious as well, because you know that people outside of your bedroom are working while you doze.  But like any luxury, if you start to take them for granted you are doomed.  Like today, for instance.  I had already completed two of my three power-naps, and I felt quite proud of my sleeping abilities.  I had been awake for probably two hours, and being unable to stand the awkeness any longer I collapsed into my well-slept bed and initiated the third sleep.  My sister, the considerate, kind girl that she is, picked that moment to practice her out-of-tune guitar very loudly in the adjacent room.  Having taken two naps uninterrupted, I had become used to the luxury and I proceeded to tell her to stop.  She did; I went back to bed; and I would have been lost in mid-day dreams except that the same lovely, thoughtful sister of mine began to vacuum the hall outside my room.  I snapped, and I admit that the words we exchanged were less than sisterly.  I cannot be held accountable for what I say when I am under the influence of too much sleep.  But altogether I learned a powerful lesson.  Can I recall it?  Not at all.



"If I had to choose between knowing everything about the world, or knowing nothing, I would choose ignorance."

I can't decide if I agree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mBGODdzzVw

Weird Al is just amazing.  Call me white and nerdy, but I love it.

Choir is discouraging.  College applications are discouraging.  I'm always tired.  And I'm always sad in the fall -  it's like a weird mild seasonal depression.

But on the plus side, I'm pretty sure we're going to get Poland for Model UN.  It made the final six and it's not a highly requested country.  I guess I can die happy now.  Pierogis!!  I'm totally bringing them!!

"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. 

As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. 

Be yourself.  Especially do not feign affection. 

Neither be cynical about love- for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass...

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. 

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 

Therefore be at peace with God...and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.” 

-Max Ehrmann

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat -- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."

-C.S. Lewis

I feel more and more like I'm being pointed toward either

Ohio State University

or

The University of Georgia.

They both have competitive, prestitigious honors colleges, excellent English and linguistics programs, and extracurriculars one could drown in.

So...the biggest question is...

whether I would make a better Buckeye or Bulldog.

I’m a tool most people possess:

You need me to live comfortably.

My shape, it can vary from narrow to boxy

But always I’m strong and I’m sharp.

Some people are paid to get rid of me,

The youngest and oldest don’t need me,

You wouldn’t want just one of me:

I’m useless all by myself.

When it comes to my appearance,

Conformity is the key:

Much money is spent on how I look

And my function follows my form.

But don’t be deceived by my glamour,

Or think that I’m only for show:

You’d be nearly helpless without me,

And frustrated, ugly, and thin.

 

What am I?

I have become way too cynical.

But justifiably so.

Hugh Laurie is hottt x10.

His character on House is a jerk, but in a hottt way.

I think I'm in love.

I haven't done a "real" update on here in a couple of weeks, so I feel like I should say what life has been like since...July 23. 

I guess school has started.  It's not really what I expected senior year to be like.  It's fun, and I like my classes, but high school just feels way passé.  I think the problem is that after Governor's School, which was basically college, going back to high school seems so recessive.  I feel, mentally, like I've already moved on.  Which isn't to say that I won't enjoy and make the most of my senior year, but I am now completely sure that I'm ready for college.

On the topic of college, I think I've changed my mind about what I want to study.  Well, it's not so much a change of mind as an addendum.  I was going to just major in English, and then get a Master's in education so I could teach.  Now, though, I think I've slowly been discovering that my true passion is not so much English (although I still love it) but linguistics.  It's kind of a scary thing for me to admit, because when thinking about college plans I'm ultra-practical, and linguists aren't exactly in high demand these days.  But if I double major in that and English and still do the education thing, I can always teach if nothing else.  Who knows, maybe I'll be a break-neck language dissecter in remote parts of Bolivia or something.  But I can teach Shakespeare and Dickens to sulky 10th graders somewhere if that doesn't work out.

Emotionally, I'm pretty weird right now. 

I feel the need for change.

However, I'm not going to push for it.  I think I'll put off on redoing my life until after high school.  Right now I want to have fun as a senior in high school.  I think it will be easy.  I'm not "coasting," per se, but I'll just say that my workload this year is not going to be overwhelming.  And now, with my newfound confidence and forward-thinkingness inspired by GSH, I feel much more free to be myself and have a good time this year.

I love you guys, and for now, I'm pretty happy.

Christina

My new love:

Sufjan Stevens.

His music is so incredible.  It's addicting.  I don't even know how to describe the musical styles: I guess a rock/bluegrass type thing with lots of other cultural influences.  And his lyrics are really good, too - as far as "Christian" music goes, Sufjan is one of the few artists I can listen to wothout cringing, because his lyrics aren't cheesy, cliched, or shallow, which seem unfortunatly to be the standard fare in 88.7-type Christian music.  Sufjan's lyrics are often about God, but they also reflect - in a gorgeous, poetic way - the good things in life and also the more difficult realities of life.

"On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March, on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

All the glory that the Lord has made
And the complications when I see His face
In the morning in the window

All the glory when He took our place
But He took my shoulders and He shook my face
And He takes
and He takes
and He takes..."

So, having finished The Picture of Dorian Gray, I find myself surprised at the number of amazing quotes I found in the book, mostly spoken by the character Lord Henry, whom I found quite interesting.  I don't usually write much in books, but I underlined a lot of really good quotes in Dorian Gray.   Here are my favorites.

"Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.  Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured by his wants, his desires, or his prejudices."

"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense."

"And Beauty is a form of Genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.  It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shadow we call the moon.  It cannot be questioned.  It has its divine right of sovereignty.  It makes princes of those who have it.  You smile?  Ah!  when you have lost it you won't smile...People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial.  That may be so.  But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is.  To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders.  It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.  The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

"I admit that I think it is better to be beautiful than to be good.  But on the other hand no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly."

"The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists.  Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.  A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures.  But inferior poets are absolutely facinating.  The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look.  The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistable.  He lives in the poetry he cannot write.  The others write the poetry they dare not realize."

"Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to.  There are only two ways by which man can reach it.  One is by being cultured; the other is by being corrupt."

Lady Narborough hit him with her fan.  "Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked."
"But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyeborws.  "It can only be that next world.  This world and I are on excellent terms."
"Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the onld lady, shaking her head.
Lord Henry looked serious for some moments.  "It is perfectly monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true."

"Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed."

"Youth!  There is nothing like it.  It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth.  The only people to whose opinions I listen now are people much younger than myself.  They seem in front of me.  Life has revealed to them her latest wonder.  As for the aged, I always contradict the aged.  If you ask them their opinion on something that happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in 1820, when people wore high socks, believed in everything, and knew absolutely nothing."

"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."

"It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.  They affect us just as vulgarity affects us.  They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.  Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives.  If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect.  Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play.  Or rather we are both.  We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us."

And, of course, the entire preface to the book, which is practically a piece of literature unto itself.

I like aetheticism.  I don't agree with all of it, but I kind of like the idea.  "Art for art's sake" is a belief I've always sort of held.

I got my senior picture proofs from Michael's today.  They turned out better than I expected, especially considering it was about 250 degrees with 400 percent humidity when I had them taken.

But I don't know what to order. 

 

 

 

 

Senior freaking year, baby.

I hate the corporate world.  I hate buisness.  I hate, especially, cutthroat buissness people.  I hate calling people I don't know, to ask questions they don't want to answer.  I hate extension numbers.  I hate Japanese buisnesses in Alabama.  I hate condecending people.  I hate rude people.  I hate how I take EVERYTHING personally.  I hate Human Resources.  I hate Accounts Payable.  I hate 8-5.  I hate electrical engineers.  I hate having to lie for my job. 

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. 

I will never, never, never be in buisness.

I got a promotion at the recruiting office where I work.

I'm now a spy!

That's right. 

If we don't hear from a buisness that interviewed one of our candidates, we become suspicious that they hired them without telling us, thereby cheating us out of money.  My job is to innocently call these companies and ask for the candidate in question.  I have to hide the fact that I'm from a recruiting company; these corporations hate recruiters calling their employees.  If all is well, I will be told that I have a wrong number or that no one by the candidate's name works there.  That means the company was honest, and just didn't hire the candidate.  If, however, I get put through to the candidate, I still have to try to hide who I am (which is harder in this step, since candidates can be suspicious and even hostile), but I have to try to figure out how long they've been working there, and then I alert my boss, who contacts the company to tell them they're cheating us out of money.

It's pretty exciting.

But I still only make 6 dollars an hour.

Whatever.

Early day: AP English IV

1st period: AH Chemistry

2nd period: Speech

3rd period: H Economics/AP U.S. Government

4th period: Journalism (listed as teacher's aid)

5th period: Chamber Choir

(unscheduled) 6th period: Editor's period for journalism


It's pretty good.  I managed to keep my senior year fairly easy without looking like I'm completely slacking off. 

Which...I pretty much am.  Notice the lack of any math, and the fact that I'm only just now taking chemistry.

This year's going to be great.