switch

Because I am massively procastinating, and I think Blogger is ugly and I need change, this is what I'm moving to:

http://sayacate.tumblr.com/

But then again, sometimes I decide I don't like change. So we'll just give it a test run.

and i shall have some peace there

After sending me an email pouring with apologies and the lilting kind of English that Mary Poppins would've used if she had email--well, the aforementioned English professor is back in my good graces. And Exam #2 is DONE leaving me with only two to go. Last night I was near tears, thanks to the combined forces of lack of sleep, lack of social life and lack of any kind of grasp of the Spanish subjunctive. But then I remembered that terrible night at the Undergraduate Library with Abby M. The night before the test when I sat perched, shivering on the steps of Wilson and looked up at the stars and realized I really have three main tasks at UNC: to love God, to love where I am and the people I'm with and everything that entails--and to try to do my best to learn. I can't do more than that. And really, though I have no more of an idea of what I want to do with my life than when I came here, at least I know that it won't be anything remotely related to Spanish and Economics. For sure.

Luna Bars and Coffee are slowly depleting my bank account.

This is the poem by Yeats that I couldn't remember during my English exam, but that I love very much anyways:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Posting poetry probably will only cement the fact in Will Duncan's mind that I'm a hipster--a 2007 hipster no less--but isn't it beautiful?

Five days till the wedding of the century!

davis library is my boyfriend

I always wake up cold here. My bed is sidled right up against the windows which, though beautiful, are thin as wax-paper. The ten minutes before I get out of bed, then, are always spent huddled against the heater turned on full-blast, looking at the Christmas lights strung haphazardly across the room (A. and I went a bit crazy with them) and listening to Sufjan. I hope you don't laugh if it's very possibly my favorite part of the day.

I can't gage temperatures very well (weather and climate was not a very strong component of my homeschool education). I'm pretty sure it's about -10 degrees, though, and should start snowing NOW. I feel like I shouldn't have to go to the the Great Hall to get a semblance of a snow experience.

The Bowerbirds concert the other day was completely magical. Allie and I went to the Campus Y to study before it, and as we were getting a drink from the water fountain, we heard people singing in the respective male and female bathrooms, synchronizing with the crazy bathroom acoustics. No big deal, just Phil Moore and Beth Tacular harmonizing spontaneously (side note--I wish my name rhymed with spectacular). You bet North Carolina can produce a good band or two. If I had a beard and wasn't a woman and could sing and play multiple funky instruments I, too, would be in a folk band. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

My English Professor still hasn't told me what time she want me to take the exam today, despite the number of times I've emailed and called and visited her office. I feel like that's a problem.

motivation (eight more days):

Nine More Days

Total amount of hours spent studying this weekend: All.

Well, almost. Having almost completely barricaded myself in Davis all weekend, these things have been my constant companions:

-Large, large, large amounts of "borrowed" coffee from Alpine
-Second Floor. Up the stairs, seedy-looking couch to the left
-Waterbottle. Bathroom.
-Google Translator. Jstor. Blackboard (Great idea! Let's see how many times I can calculate my highest and lowest possible exam scores and still be able to fall into the appropriate grade range without wanting to cry)
-The Phoenix LaBlogotheque videos
-Every single person in my life that's also at Davis. Well. Most of them. The ones that study.
-The words Shantih and Joy writtten in giant letters across both of my hands
-My vial of frequently-applied aromatherapy stress-reliever (everything sounds more magical when joined with the word "vial")
-Massive quantities of apples and all the other completely non-ripe fruit the dining halls have to offer
-Motivation

But still....
It's good.

"Golfing Dad in the Springtime Plaid"

Today has not been my favorite day, and this week has not been my favorite week. At all. I want to crawl into a cave for the winter and hibernate. A few fun facts: My favorite/brand new/EXPENSIVE jeans split irreparably, I dropped my phone and it didn't handle the abuse well, I met with my Professor and he literally tore my soul to shreds (or if he didn't do that literally, he sure made a valiant attempt at it), The Waste Land is depressing and I'm not entirely sure how to construct a seven-page paper out of it, people confuse me (a short, but loaded statement) and exams begin next week. Crawling into a cave not being an option, I just want to be home lighting the Advent candles and singing. O Come, O Come Emmanuel....

.....But I have a terrible fear of angst. Happiness is my natural climate and I feel the need to be even more happy when the rest of the student body/world seems so unhappy, as if it's my responsibility to balance the equation out. So this is my attempt to balance: this week, like every week, has had redeeming qualities. Moonbows. Christmas songs. Presents underneath doors. Sur-Nay, Tey-Nay, July, Sunday. Sufjan's Christmas albums. Lights in windows. Lunches. The days that didn't rain. Dinner with Teddy Warria and my favorites. In addition, via Abby, via Brent, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros have completely transformed my life (watch Home to understand why). No, but really: I think there was a piece of my heart that was missing that these bearded, pixie people just restored.

One thing I did gain from reading T.S Eliot this week, all the way at the end of the poem:

Shantih, Shantih, Shantih
Peace, Peace, Peace

And I guess that's what I'll choose to take away from it all.

better be making your wedding dress

When I come home, the weight of Chapel Hill falls heavily on me. Every time I'm here I manage to develop sudden bouts of exhaustion and colds and weird eighteenth-century diseases (this may be a slight exaggeration, but I do feel reproachful: really, Universe? Shingles?). As a result, tonight, I'm happily snuggled in bed. It's a Friday night and my entire family (eleven people and still missing one!) is upstairs playing cards. But you know, if a girl is tired a girl is tired, right?

Tonight, I'm happy. And so, so grateful. Tonight I'm grateful with the kind of gratefulness that is aware of Christ's faithfulness, which is constant, even when within twenty-four hours I can swing through bouts of hormonal extremes. Last night I was sitting on the couch crying (pecking at twenty-four pages usually causes me to lose perspective rapidly) and today I was sitting perched on top of the car, in my favorite home spot, drinking in the yellow fields that curve into the woods. Happiness. I'm reminded of His faithfulness even when my faith is only a small crumb of a mustard seed. His faithfulness was present when I was emotionally drained and it was present still today when I was filled with surges of incomparable happiness and blue skies. I'm not constant, but Jesus is.

How did I get so lucky with the family that I did? Families, too, are faithful, even when you forget to love them sometimes. I'm thankful for every one of them: Daddy, Mama, Josh, Elisabeth, Pocho, Emily, Jonathan, Lily, Markus, Wolfe, Jonathan. Tonight I looked around the table and observed all the different conversations that take place at a typical sitting: Daddy holding Lily and trying to teach her to call him Chief, Elisabeth and Pocho and Jonathan talking in rapid Spanish, the boys, Emily and Mom talking about the kinds of things mothers talk about.

I'm also thankful for: the community I've found at UNC, new frontiers, friends that challenge me, my beloved Kingswood Apartment kids, running, the color green, flickr, sketchbooks, the Union, coffee, banjos and people who play them, Sunday morning nature walks, teachers that challenge me, t.s eliot, siblings (this one is important enough to stress twice), coming up the escalator at lenoir and knowing I'm not alone, stars, bits of wilderness even on campus, anthropologie, vegetarianism, people who give good hugs, people who whistle, grace community church, old architecture, dancing with allie (and a roommate I adore, naturally), flannel, the opportunity to meet and connect so quickly with new faces on a daily basis, advent, people who drive me places, people from asheville, grace farson (she didn't mention me, but, well, I do appreciate her a mighty bit), coffee, having extended family in chapel hill, the kvetch board, birkenstocks, the pineapple candle amy gave me, lettuce from our garden, christmas, southern short stories, my cat, t-paine (the bike, but I guess I'm thankful for the rapper, too), the campus y, my niece, metal water bottles, foreign scarves, target, writing and harrison barnes. I like writing comprehensive lists.

Lately, I love raw, rugged music. I can't stop listening to Brandi Carlile and the Dixie Chicks; Sam Amidon and Sufjan Stevens, Cat Stevens and William Fitzsimmons and Josh Ritter (but that's a given, right?). They make me hurt, but in the best of ways.