On the start of my last fall semester...

      There was a time when I was hungry for knowledge, but now I just eat. I wanted to know what every word meant, but not just in context; I wanted to know the specific usage, what the word's original meaning was, and the connotation it held. I carried a dictionary around everywhere I went despite my shoulder hurting and looking silly when I looked up "metaphysical" for the umpteenth time just to make sure I really understood what it meant. I wanted to know everything.
      Sometimes I still get that feeling, like today when I spent more of my time at Sea World on my phone figuring out how closely related killer whales are to dolphins than actually watching Shamu. I want to know things and I want to explore and I don't want to JUST know things, I want to understand them in a way that just keeps leading to more questions that need to be answered because there's always more to explore! Yes! That is an exclamation point!
      In a whirlwind of indecision during the first week of school I dropped and added classes on the drop and add deadlines until the very last second and ended up with more classes than I wanted to take and more books to read than I probably am capable of. So now I have 5 English classes and a job. I know I'm in for a hell of a semester but I'm glad. I hope it ignites the kind of fire in me that I had when I was lugging that dictionary, fat from being overused and abused and stuffed with notecards, around with me everywhere.

Things I learned in College

Things I learned in College... that most people figured out in high school.

1. I love making lists:

      Shouldn't I have known this about myself a long time ago? Who knows. I read this book a few semesters ago for my Women in Lit class and one of the main characters makes lists because there's a famous Japanese woman from olden times who used to do it. I would love to have written a way more descriptive sentence than that but I am too lazy to look up or remember the details. The book was My Year of Meats and I highly recommend it especially if you're interested in corruption in the meat industry and/or feminism. Anyway I really like lists as a way of organizing thoughts and I appreciate the cheesiness factor that comes with them.

2. It's okay to fry your hair:

      When my friends and family were dyeing their hair different shades of black and blonde and red and straightening their hair until it begged for mercy right before it died slowly from the ends up, I was okay with my "natural" look. I never believed in hair dryers and to be honest I still am not their biggest fan. I never straightened my hair because I thought it would kill it and I usually had long wavy hair anyway. I never dyed it because my mom is obsessed with this idea that once you dye your hair you are basically walking the plank and can never get back to your natural color or grow it out. I really believed her for a long time, that me changing my hair was going to ruin everything and I would never forgive myself. Seriously though, who the hell cares? It's hair. It grows back and if it doesn't, that's cool, most of my friends are bald anyway. I've been bleaching parts of my hair to keep pink highlights for at least a year now and of course those parts are not very healthy but it doesn't really bother me. My hair isn't falling out and I just want to try other things with my hair anyway so why worry?

3. Alcohol is good:

      I don't know. This one kind of speaks for itself. I only drank a little in high school. I could probably count the number of parties I went to on one hand. I liked it but I still had this idea in my head that it corrupted people and changed them and would eat me alive if I let it. Then I realized that I am a perfectly capable human being and that fun doesn't kill people. I learned to enjoy myself. But...

4. Being healthy is better:

      Alcohol is really bad for your body. I live based on the notion that "I'm in college once, I'm going to do what I want,"so I don't hold back too much but I do try to respect what my body wants and not push it too far. My Year of Meats was also really great to push me into my ongoing experiment with vegetarianism. Look at that full circle ending I just pulled off. Better quit while I'm ahead...

Currently:

Currently ignoring:

- the fact that I have to leave for work in less than 9 hours.

- that I don't own a working Macbook charger

Currently obsessing over:

- how long it takes Mod Podge to dry, yet how much I love it.

- how disgusting the food most Americans consume is.

      I really ought to be asleep but instead I've been decorating my phone case and painting my nails and writing this blog and reading articles about healthy eating. I have actually been making real progress in my slow journey to becoming a vegan. I have been resisting my parents cooking, at least the meat part of it. I caved when we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings, but come on, I couldn't NOT have wings. I'm a horrible person for enabling myself but really, I have been getting better. I even bought vegan chicken nuggets to replace the just vegetarian ones I used to eat all the time (I'm going to miss them though). There are a lot of things wrong with my diet still but I am very impressed with my progress and some things that are controversial I actually don't have a problem with, such as soy. I have a higher-than-most-people intake of soy because of my weakness for imitation meat products and my love of tofu and my soy milk creamer. I am perfectly alright with that. There are some concerns about soy such as hormone problems which I have looked into and is pretty much bogus. What does concern me is that apparently it's processed differently in the United States and is less healthy because if it and I will look into that further but in the mean time I feel very healthy and have not heard anything to make me stop having my favorite tofu stir-fry every other day.

      I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but I was planning on moving to Denver after I graduated and starting an awesome hipster, health-nut, active, nature-filled, badass life there with my best friends Sarah and Olive. Unfortunately that is no longer my plan. I might reconsider, but as it stands now, I just don't think I could bring myself to go there. The city of Denver apparently thinks that my best friend in the whole world is a vicious abomination that deserves to die and that it has the right to tell me what kind of dog I can own. Olive is a Pit Bull. She is also the most awesome dog in the entire world and the biggest cuddle monster and the love of my life. She doesn't have a vicious bone in her body. Also, I don't like being told what to do. So, screw you Denver. I can bring my bookshelf full of yard-sale-bought classics, my Mod Podge craft glue and glitter, my high-waisted skirts,  my adorable face, my awesome (human) best friend and her spectacularly short hair, and my beyond-amazing dog to some other city that we are welcome in. So suck on that Denver. Also, yes I do make decisions based on my dog. That's exactly the type of stubborn person I am and I'm okay with that. I don't sacrifice my happiness when I don't need to and I don't see any reason why I shouldn't choose my living arrangements based on where my dog will be allowed if I know that I like having her around. I probably shouldn't even be writing any of this since she ate my favorite shoes today so I'm going to stop now and go to bed.

And so I meditate...

And so I meditate...

               too much.

and my mind
((implodes))
into
"What does that mean?"
"How come?"
"Why do I?"
      "Why do I?"
            "Why do I?"

WHY DO I?

Or I quit.
Shut down.
   
      brain: off.

do
do
do.

worry later.

So now I think to myself

Ask then do?
Do then ask?
Ask and do?
Don't do, don't ask.

Or I could burn this page
and grow something new

             in
            the
          ashes.

Oh Joy!

Today I found out that I finally got a job. I was so ecstatic that I wrote this poem on post it notes.

The Further to the Side I Part My Hair, the Better I Look (and Other Myths About Myself)

Every once in a while I will get bored and part my hair on the opposite side for the day to switch things up, today was one of those days and it made me think to myself, why have I been parting my hair like this for so many years? I realized that the way I part my hair has been the same way for so long because I created this myth in my head that this is the only way it looks good which led me to wonder what other myths have I had about myself in the past that I realized weren't true?

1. The further to the side I part my hair, the better I look. It's a scientific fact that my beauty is directly correlated to the more asymmetrically my hair is parted. If I was to part my hair more towards the middle I would be a hideous old hag like something out of a disney movie (or my face would just look too thin). When I parted my hair to the opposite side today it ended up being a little more centered and I realized something amazing... I didn't look any different than usual. Not to mention, who the hell cares? So I'm moving on.

2. I am short. Actually, the average height of an adult woman in the United States is just shy of 5 feet and 4 inches. Coincidentally, I, too, am just shy of 5 feet and 4 inches tall. Weird, I've been told I'm short my whole life, and I have also claimed to be short and yet, I am almost exactly average height. I just happen to have been born into an immediate family that consists of slightly above average height people and became convinced that I was short. That, and I actually was shorter than most people when I was younger, I grew slowly.

3. I am bad at sports.
    Actually that one is true. I'm going to go ahead and blame not being pushed enough as a child.

4. Intelligence matters and I am smart! I can't stress this one enough. I seriously freak out when I think I'm not smart enough. It really should not matter to me at all. Instead of claiming to choose ignorance about certain things and then going home and being mad at myself for not being able to keep up a conversation, I really should just pick up a newspaper occasionally, pick up a book more than occasionally, write constantly, and learn non-stop. Intelligence can't be measured, and when it it, it's flawed, so I need to stop worrying about sounding stupid and start remembering what really matters. I should be a culturally-aware, self-aware, caring, educated, and unique human being, not the girl in the corner, mad about not being the smartest in the room.

5. I have fat legs. I figured I'd finish this list out with a solidly superficial finale. My legs and butt area may or may not be slightly bigger proportionally than the rest of me but to be honest it doesn't look bad on me and even if it does I kind of don't care. I'm fairly healthy and don't have a lot of excess body fat so I really don't care if I have a little extra junk in the trunk. To be honest though, I really don't. It's mostly just me being nit-picky about my own body since I'm pretty satisfied with it and then there's a grain of truth to the matter.

I don't know why I make up silly myths about myself. Maybe my parents told me Santa wasn't real a little too early and I had to make up other things to replace him. It doesn't really matter how it happened; what matters is that I stop making up insecurities when I get bored of being happy with myself.

I'm realizing more than ever lately that I simply am not taking as much advantage of my blog as I should be. I just don't know how I can fix that. I'd like to write all the time and update the world on my life but who wants to read bits and pieces from a college student's life when I have no goal or theme or plan in mind for the blog or my life. Usually I just feel like a lost feather floating down a creek not really knowing what's going on but being carried away anyway. After almost 21 years of living I still somehow haven't really learned how to steer. I've said how content I am with my life so many times lately that I started to question it. Am I seriously that content to just be here? I'm not exactly accomplishing anything but I mean I'm not exactly stagnant either. I'm almost done with my degree and I'm sort of working on what life will be like after college but I feel like I'm treading water.

I keep saying that I want to be a writer and I really do but I just don't do anything about it. I barely ever write, I refuse to edit anything, and I rarely ever manage to finish a story. Even if I continue to update the world on my progress, what is the end goal? Graduation? Moving away? Getting a job? Grad school? A publishing institute? A writing job? Being published? I'm not really sure. I've always focused on the journey and forgotten where I'm going but at this time of my life I think I ought to pay a bit more attention, especially if I expect other people to want to pay attention to my life.

In other news: Everyone I know is at Bonnaroo having what I assume is an amazing time without me. I'm not completely depressed about not being able to go because I never really expected to but it does make me a little sad to know how much fun is to be had that I am missing out on. On the bright side though, Mumford & Sons didn't cancel their plans to be played on the stereo in my apartment, I went to see Say Anything at House of Blues this week, and I went to a really cool information meeting to apply to volunteer with The Zebra Coalition. As the score stands now: Jamie - 3; Music Festivals - 54364375363263. At least I fought back right?

Also I'd like to comment on when sexism makes me happy. I'd like to say "never" but the truth is that sometimes it makes me feel like a total badass. Last night I went to a little party at a friend of mine's apartment where I was surrounded by men. The few girls that were there were mostly part of the group I brought. I learned to play a new game called Survivor flip cup, as in playing flip cup with Survivor rules. When your team loses, just like the TV show (minus the tiki torches), you vote someone off but you still have as many cups as you started with so you end up doing more work. Long story short, I played awesomely and ended up being the only one left on my team against the only person left on the other team and I completely smoked him. It felt awesome because I won a game, which is rare for me, but also because there were some comments about "being beat by a girl" which made me want to go on one of my usual feminist rants but instead I just basked in the increased glory.