Hiatus.

Eight hours down, four more to go.

I finished A Man Without a Country. Brilliant as ever. I was mildly embarrassed by some of the notes I scribbled in the margins when I read it 2.5 years ago (a fucking RENT lyric I thought applied, not-so-nice reactions to socialism that made it seem like I wasn't even paying attention to what Vonnegut was writing, ...) and became even more embarrassed when I remembered that I borrowed it to Christian, post-scribbling. Blah.

"Persuasive guessing has been at the core of leadership for so long, for all of human experience so far, that it is wholly unsurprising that most of the leaders of this planet, in spite of all the information that is suddenly ours, want the guessing to go on. ... Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today [2005]. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting.
... Loaded pistols are good for everyone except inmates in prisons or lunatic asylums.
That's correct.
Millions spent on public health are inflationary.
That's correct.
Billions spent on weapons will bring inflation down.
That's correct.
Dictatorships to the right are much closer to American ideals than dictatorships to the left.
That's correct.
The more hydrogen bomb warheads we have, all set to go off at a moment's notice, the safer humanity is and the better off the world will be that our grandchildren will inherit.
That's correct.
Industrial wastes, and especially those that are radioactive, hardly ever hurt anybody, so everybody should shut up about them.
That's correct.
Industries should be allowed to do whatever they want to do: Bribe, wreck the environment just a little, fix prices, screw dumb customers, put a stop to competition, and raid the Treasury when they go broke.
That's correct.
That's free enterprise
And that's correct.
The poor have done something very wrong or they wouldn't be poor, so their children should pay the consequences.
That's correct.
The United States of America cannot be expected to look after its own people.
That's correct.
The free market will do that.
That's correct.
The free market is an automatic system of justice,
That's correct.
I'm kidding."

Moving on to White Like Me. I glanced at some of the pages Jane marked first and saw "Rachy!" with an arrow---Color of Fear!! Do we believe that Tim Wise is friends with Victor, J? Why does that just seem farfetched to me :/ I don't know.
I was going to mention this when I write you back today, but I'll just say it now: We should forever send each other books we've just read with notes and ideas and exclamation points, lol. Til we are wrinkly old women on opposite ends of the world (or next door neighbors).

Holy hell,

"CIIS as an institution neither desires to add another fundamentalism to public discourse nor to reflexively replicate the status quo of separation between disciplines, between theory and practice, and between intellect and spirit that characterizes and continually recreates a world in crisis (Bronson, 2004: Bronson & Gangadean, 2004). The vision is not merely a rejection of what is, for this would place CIIS in the unfortunate situation of being merely another alternative school, one where integral means simply "not mainstream" (Montuori, 2004). What we are naming integral education at its best encompasses what is normally sought in a good education with an added emphasis on personal and societal relevance, transdisciplinarity, and a mutual honoring of the modes of knowing glossed under mind, body, and spirit and inner and outer (or subjective and objective) realities (Ferrer, 2007). Intigral education, like this inquiry, highlights metacognition, the ability to reflect critically on one's own thinking, identify limitations and address gaps by accessing multiple models and perspectives."

AND,

"In Brant Cortright’s Transpersonal and Integral Psychotherapy Class, students are required to write a 20- to 30-page paper in which they research and explicate a clinical topic through an integral lens. Some examples are: eating disorders viewed integrally, integral treatment modalities for addiction, wilderness therapy from an integral perspective.

A student wrote on integrating therapy with wilderness experiences; in his research, he began to draw on different spiritual traditions as well as psychotherapeutic benefits. He has gone on to create a major organization in Marin County that offers vision quests to adolescents and adults. His paper allowed him a chance to put together his ideas about body, heart, mind, and spirit to create a therapeutic approach that is highly successful."

For a month or two at the end of freshman year, I thought about training to be a leader on those Outward Bound type retreats for troubled youth, or I guess troubled anyone. This is inspiring :)

The Institute's Seven Ideals

1. Practices an integral approach to learning and research
The Institute facilitates the integration of body-mind-spirit. It values the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, creative, somatic, and social dimensions of human potentiality. Students are encouraged to take an interdisciplinary approach to learning by complementing their specialized program of study with courses in other departments.

2. Affirms spirituality
The Institute is committed to the study and practice of multiple spiritual traditions and to their expression and embodiment throughout all areas and activities of the Institute community.

3. Commits to cultural diversity
Promoting a dialogue of difference, the curriculum reflects a commitment to the diversity of the world's cultures and spiritual traditions while seeking their holistic integration.

4. Fosters multiple ways of learning and teaching
The Institute honors many learning modalities and ways of knowing–intuition, body-knowledge, creative expression, intellect, and spiritual insight.

5. Advocates feminism and sustainability
The Institute embraces intellectual, cultural, and spiritual traditions which further the effectiveness of emancipatory movements such as feminism, social and political liberation, cultural self-expression, and ecological activism.

6. Supports community
Community at the Institute is understood to be founded upon an underlying core of values which affirm shared understandings and differences, scholarly efforts, and humane concerns. Such community is a vital part of the Institute's effort to provide an effective, visionary, and nurturing environment for study and training.

7. Strives for an integral and innovative governance
The Institute recognizes the importance of a mode of governance which would eliminate, or at least reduce, the polarities and fragmentation which typically plague institutions. As with other ideals, integral governance is difficult both to formulate and to practice. This ideal stands among the seven as a constant challenge and encouragement to try new forms, procedures, criteria, and language as aids to a more shared and collaborative decision making process.

You mean I can get an MA in 'Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation' AND explore my, as of yet, unfailing Potter-sense?!
Really now, if the institute was in Portland I would be quite sure that I've dreamed this all up.

I'm taking advantage of the 12 hour work day I sort of unexpectedly landed in by reading every single word on the CIIS webpage. I also brought Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country, and White Like Me (thanks Jane) to read.

Good day keeps getting better:
I'VE BEEN OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED INTO THE ATHENS, GREECE STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM!!!!!!
*dances*

( season 5 reactions! )

I'll probably have a lot more to say later, but it's nearly 3am and I'm going to go to sleep.

My mom just forwarded me an email...apparently my dad wrote CBS because they cancelled guiding light, which he tapes every day and watches on his stationary bike after work, before making dinner. It's a routine. He defies gender roles. i.e he is the woman of the house.

( It's okay to laugh )
Note: he watches it almost everyday and hahahaha since he was 15 years old. I have to agree though, nothing good is on CBS.


Also, my mom unwittingly told me how much my parents make after years of SHHHing me if I asked.

/insanity

Ignore the last post and please enjoy my new Skins icon. Jal is my favorite female character because Michelle is obnoxious (and in love with Tony for fuck's sake), Cassie is loony, while Jal is very very kick ass and incredibly beautiful.

Anwar is my favorite male character, and I've finally found an icon for him too :)

It's about 12:30am, I've got morning class downtown, haven't finished the reading, so I best get to sleep and cram on the train :/ Night all.

I am slowly letting my head and heart discuss (quietly, and without my annoying interruption) what I want to...do, when I grow up lol.
I'm trying to be calm and think it through, sort of, because I normally just go frenzy crazy when I get excited about a possible future, and that just doesn't work. I want to know what I'm talking about when I talk to Jane :)

Last night after swim (girl Alex and Brena!) wolfbane and I watched The 11th Hour and had a seriously wonderful conversation. I will never get tired of sounding like an idiot while you speak golden words of concise...ment, Jane! This morning Rosie took J and I to the theater school where I touched a piano for the first time since Christmas and Jane and Rose did..tumbling? behind me :)
Lots of .... tonight, apparently.

Then we watched GATTACA (!) and took an hour yoga class, the effects of which are currently killing. I love this feeling. Tonight I started watching The West Wing again (I stopped after the first couple episodes of season 3), and while it's not as exciting (to me) as S1 and 2, I'm becoming obsessed again. I can't get over how much I love C.J. She is always kicking all kinds of asses.

It's been a laid back, lovely day. All my homework is chapters of reading out of various texts for various classes, and writing a resume/cover letter for any anthro grad program. So I didn't feel in any rush to start anything today lol.

virtuistic, you asked about Biomimicry before, I'm only 40ish pages in, but it's so freaking interesting and I think you should check it out immediately. Or when you get back from WI. Hope the 4 hour mix goes superbly ;)

DUDE MARY LOUISE PARKER IS ARGUING WITH JOSH LYMAN! I love this show.

Ahhhhh man I love Victoria Van Kirk!!



I also love Kelly ♥

lol. I dislike the song Bleeding Love, but

hahahahah cryyyy if i want toooooo. You would cry too if it happened to you! is apparently next on my itunes.

anyway,

...but singing it in my head makes me feel better and less melodramatic. Or more melodramatic? But it sort of feels good. And of course, makes me think of Lark and Megan and last summer :)

I'm not going to class at 3, but I'm going to TRY to straighten some things out at the bank, drop off my B&N application, and get OJ and yogurt from country market. Then it's to the school library where I will do my self-assessment for anthro :/ (what personality traits do I have?), make an exercise plan for completing in my room once Tess moves out in 1.5 weeks for the days I can't convince myself to go to the Ray, finish my last study abroad answer, submit an online movie theatre application, read Powedermaker, maybe (hopefully) see Jane, borrow her 11th Hour(?), reflect and cry in the tub, and run at the Ray.
Then it's time for bed, and then it's Wednesday where I have one dinky morning class and a day wide open for walking, thinking, writing, exercising, doing more homework, and calming the fuck down.

This place is a terrible fit, but if I just calm down, good can come out of it all. I can't wait to go home next weekend. I've got Tyler George and my bike in my mind's eye, and nothing can stop me from enjoying 3 full days playing music, hugging my mom, and biking around town. I bet I can convince Ty to explore the Forbidden Forest with me :D:D:D The river won't be frozen any more!

I keep leaving my anthro classes feeling sad because I'm not motivated to go after any career or learning opportunity and I'm sort of scared, but I don't want to sit and process any of it, I'd rather watch Breaking Bad and avoid life. I have an hour and a half to convince myself to go to class this afternoon.

Also, there are two fuckers in my morning class who really piss me off, and all they're doing is sounding pretentious and demonstrating a desire for social change. But in a pretentious way. Which, apparently, I can't handle. One of them is in my afternoon class too, so there's more of him to look forward to.

I need something to wipe this sour taste out of my mouth, metaphorically speaking.

Now who's the pretentious fucker.

I just started The Sixth Sense, and already I've got a twitch in my left eye. Why do I do this to myself? I've kept half the lights on, at least, and I'm keeping busy with t-shirt ideas and kind of homework.

hahahah the next time someone asks me what I do in my free time I'm going to say I do karate and try to get females pregnant.
That's what I do!

I always have a good/productive day after a really shitty emotional day. Which is great, but also a little, "so is tomorrow going to be shit like ever other day after the day after?" Hope not!

I woke up seconds before my 7:45 alarm this morning, but decided it would be nice to have a lie in. I ended up having freaky dreams about killing Tyra Banks (which was more of an accident/hassle/inconvenience that you would think), vacationing with family and missing out on all the fun/swimming, and Robert Pattinson? Or .."Edward"? Three girls were talking about Twilight in one of my classes yesterday and it was annoying me, so I'm not surprised, but I can't remember what Robert/Edward was doing? Whatever. OH, I remember Jonas and Sara were dating and it was FREAKING ME OUT but Madeleine was totally calm, and I didn't understand how she could be.

Classes were really discouraging yesterday, and I'm trying to better..prepare myself for next week. I don't really know how to explain it...it's not that the content is over my head, and it's definitely not that I'm bored with what we're going to learn. It feels like...treading water...kind of? Moving, moving moving, not really going anywhere, but still getting..something out of it? I don't know, so I'm going to stop now. It wasn't frustrating, but made me feel really sad. Which kind of freaked me out lol.

Good Things!
1. There's an unassuming girl in one of my anthro classes who has facial features very similar to Kate Winslet. I want to be her friend.
2. A guy in my other anthro class group has sort of a stutter (and looks sort of like the red headed doctor on Grays Anatomy), which meant whenever I spoke to him, I was the picture of composure. WHY DO SOCIALLY UNCOMFORTABLE PEOPLE PUSH ME INTO THIS CALM, COLLECTED, SOCIAL MODE.
3. Jane, I really want to be in an anthro class with Bret(t) now :)
4. I put money back on my dad's credit card by returning yet another textbook that came in at the public library!

This post (even with the good things list) put me in a weird mood that I am not digging, so I'm off to do something else instead!

Hang in there my friends.

01. Make a list of 5 men you would like to do today, but won't unless you got the chance:
-Alex from Latvia
-Emile Hirsch
-Gael Garcia Bernal
-The boy I had a crush on FOREVER, who is NO LONGER compatible at all, but still dead sexy. I would, without question, tap that (Am I allowed to say that?). As long as we didn't have to talk afterward.
-Paul Rudd circa the '90s. I know it says "today", but it's just a meme.

02. Would you ever get a tattoo?
Got the one I've wanted for years this winter.


03. What was the last (fill in the blank:epiphany) you had?
I don't remember

04. What's your occupation?
I have been unemployed for just over two months :( And besides the fact that I have ONE DOLLAR AND NINETY FIVE CENTS TO MY NAME, I can't be bothered to fill out coffee shop applications. I've been searching my school's campus job/internship web page for the past two months and applied to many. No dice.

( EEP SORRY, forgot to cut for length )
No tagging tonight, anyone who wants to do it should.

Random aside: I have been in a better mood since discovering the comics Chris drew me in high school, choice Weezer songs, and finally putting the LP Zoo shot glass Matt and Betsey got me to goodish use.

My spirits are low and I want to pause life for three days. How would one go about doing that?

Do you sometimes have two parts of you arguing about whether or not to do something? Like I was walking home from class and the dejected part of me was going, "I don't want to go to swimming in half an hour" and the little tiny rational, lovely part of me was screaming (as it always does) "YES. GO. DO IT. PLEASE. FOR ME. I WANT TO. TAKE ME SWIMMING." and the dejected part kept whining like a baby, until the rational, lovely part actually screamed, "I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T GO!!!!" which made me giggle in the middle of the crowded stairwell.

I've never threatened myself with death before, it was...surreal.

I know I'm not the only one who talks to myself!

EDIT: I did go to swimming, just got back in fact, but I don't feel that much better. But I won the relay :)

I found a show called Nearly Famous, which is terrible, but in a way that makes you want to keep watching. Actually, that's not even true, I just like that the kids are British and in some fancy performing arts conservatory college. thing. AND one of the extras is OWEN from Being Human!!! And one of the four main characters is from the horrible movie they made out of the first Georgia Nicolson book (he plays Robbie). So I may at least finish episode one. Later.

Because it's pushing four and I'm headed to Oz Park. Might as well start some reading for tomorrow's classes.

Does anyone know where I can find WORKING (fucking surfthechannel) episodes of Party Down? I always watch shit on surfthechannel, but they only have two episodes and the second one stops 3 minutes in. It's driving me a little crazy, because after one episode I'm kind of obsessed. CO-CREATED AND CO-WRITTEN BY PAUL RUDD. I didn't know that until I saw the credits. The only reason I started it today was because I saw an add on another website and thought, "IS THAT BILL HAVERCHUCK?!" and sure enough, Martin Starr is one of the main cast members. Along with Ken Marino, Jane Lynch and Lizzy Caplan :D

It's wonderful, and I'm disgruntled at the internet masses for holding out on the rest of the episodes.

Right now I'm going to the bookstore and student center to volunteer for some mandatory scholarship thing.

LOOK HOW SMALL MY BREASTS WERE JUNE 2007

It's good to make specific goals, so: By June 2009 my boobs will think they've traveled back in time two years. Incoherent, much?

I got caught up in old journal entries when I was looking to see if I ever wrote in LJ about floor hockey senior year. (The ol' xanga got a play by play after every game 3-4 nights a week lol)