Ten Dollar Day

Dane and I spent almost the whole day together yesterday, and it was glorious. He had the idea, since we've been spending too much money lately, to have "ten dollar day," where everything we did that day had to be done with only ten dollars. It's a pretty fun challenge! It kind of makes you feel like you're on Survivor, in a way.

We started the afternoon by finally airing my bike tires, so I can ride to campus now that it's getting warm! Then we just walked around downtown for a while. We got a small drink from McDonald's as the first purchase from our money. We went to the Chartreuse Pear, which I love and apparently Dane loves now too! There was a cute watch made of links of different metal shapes and colors, and Dane really loved it, and he said that I should make one. I love that he is finally seeing how much I love crafts and making things. Then we went to Office Depot because it's awesome, and we decided that we should get souvenirs from the day. Dane found a pen he liked but we decided to keep looking. We found them at Goodwill. He got a raquetball raquet and I got a new belt! Or an old belt, I guess. It's cute either way. Then we decided to get some dinner. We could have bought dinner with the ten dollars, too, but decided to get some chicken nuggets from Wendy's, chips and salsa from Chili's, and cook some chicken I already had at home. Very random assortment. But it was yummy!

Grand total from the day:

Coke from McDonald's

belt

raquetball raquet

chicken nuggets

chips and salsa

red box movie

I'd say that's pretty productive! And we had so much fun. We took a lot of pictures because we haven't done that in forever.

I'm getting sleepy. This is more like random talking and not anything thought out at all. I apologize.

I'm almost done with Invisible Man now. I'll finish up tomorrow and hopefully start House of Seven Gables... I think that's the next one.

Oh, I had a strange dream last night. It doesn't make too much sense when I say it, but I'll share. I dreamed that Leigh and Treasure became best friends behind my back, and I was so mad. And for some reason, they were both going to be in North Dakota at the same time (like separately, though), so to me, that meant that they were like hanging out there without me. THEN (random) I was trying to get Leigh in a picture with George Bush, but he was really rude and wouldn't smile. He was just sitting on some steps outside, though, and Leigh really liked him in the dream, so I was trying to get her a picture.

There are two things I could think about this dream:

1. I feel left out because I'm not married?? I wouldn't say this is true, but I think I maybe felt that way in the dream.

2. I've mentioned this before, but I have this inner fear, for some reason, that my close friends don't actually like me that much. It's crazy.

Anyway, that was interesting because when I woke up, I told Bri about it, and then it sounded really dumb because I wouldn't be upset at all if any of that actually happened.

Jordan came to Ruston tonight! We (Jordan, Bri, Dane and me) watched Men Who Stare at Goats. I really liked it, but I think the others had mixed feelings about it. I really liked it. It's one of those that I think have a lot of meaning and could be watched over and over. And there were really funny parts in it. It was a good portrayal of faith and believing in something, whatever the end outcome. And leaving a legacy... I don't want to ruin anything for you though. You should see it! Then we decided to put pieces of plaid fabric from the bottom of Jordan's pajama pants that she cut off on our heads as bandanna/fedoras and, because of that inspiration, decided to go on an adventure around town. So we went to the gas station in the TORRENT because Starbucks was closed at 9:30 on a Saturday night (?!?!?!???) and got coffee, a truffle delight 3 Musketeers bar, two beef jerks sticks (Jordan's and my adventure staple food) and then we called Ajantha to join the fun, after requiring her to wear a head covering, too. Somehow my phone call of "Hey! We're going on an adventure, I'm coming to get you!" translated to "Hey! I'm about to get engaged, bring a ziploc bag so your phone won't get wet in the rain as you stand outside while I get proposed to..." to her. I'm not sure how that happened. But she brought a ziploc bag. I'm glad to know that she was so prepared for my sake. A very fun evening, all in all.

Goodnight.

Today looks promising

In the past week, I have made two decisions that have released some stress from my life:


> I stepped out of life-group leading with Chi Alpha -- This is weird because I've had that responsibility for almost four years, and now it's just gone. Jenni brought it up because she knew I wouldn't quit since my commitment is through spring quarter. So I was left to decide which is better: leading and not having time or energy to do what's expected of me and not really being very effective OR quitting early and leaving Libby alone. So I told her that's how I saw it, and she said that she'd rearrange the groups so it's more efficient (I think that was Dane's word actually - gotta love econ majors!) and the effect wouldn't be anyone actually left alone. So that's what I decided to do. But one thing that is cool for me to see is that, even though it's not "required" of me to do anything now, I still want to. This reassures me that I'm not going to become a lazy bum when I'm not around a campus anymore with a cozy college ministry to push me along. It was weird not going to resource last night, though. I left the house because I didn't want to be in my room while it was happening across the hall. So I went to Ajantha's and got all of my portioned reading for the day done. I have quite a bit of reading this quarter, and, although I try to get some reading done before the quarter starts and succeeded in reading 50 pages of Wieland, I am never disciplined enough to do the reading until there's a deadline looking at me. I think I hit my all-time high for reading this weekend. I blew through All the King's Men in a week (This is impressive, you can "ooh" and "ahh" now).

All the King's Men was fantastic! I'm definitely now a fan of Robert Penn Warren. I learned in class yesterday that he's actually one of the original New Critics. This means he was one of the first people to teach by "close reading" - my most preferred way of analyzing poetry. Dr. Rudnicki told us the story of his grandmother having Warren for Shakespeare at LSU -- the good teacher was more of a performer and Warren (the guy you took if you couldn't get into the good class) made his students go line by line and analyze the dramas. He's a poet as well, and I had no idea. I haven't gotten a chance to look at much of his other work yet, but I'm sure I'll post something if I find it worthy. To add to my ever-growing list of books I want to read when I get time, I want to read a biography of Huey P. Long, so I can know what was fabricated in this novel and what was actual.

Dane actually wants to read this book too! When he takes an interest in my work and reading, it makes me so happy. I know literature is not really his thing, but I'm pretty sure he's learning to appreciate fiction in addition to his norm of non-fiction "that you can learn from." (Three cheers for learning for fictional characters as well! Where would we be without Hamlet or Holden Caulfield?)


> I decided not to graduate until Spring 2011 -- I had been planning on graduating in the winter. That means I'd need to finish my thesis proposal in a few weeks. Not happening. Dr. Martin told me that he was surprised that I wanted to do it so early because it would be really rushed, but I thought I could do it. Since I obviously can't due to the work load with classes, I'm going to just read extra when I can and write it in the summer. The catch here is that I can't turn a proposal in in the summer because who knows where the faculty will be. This means I have to write chapters in the summer (So I can, again, be ahead and not get caught with too little time) on a topic that hasn't been approved yet. But I guess if Dr. Martin says it's OK when I finish the proposal, then it should be fine.

I'm trying to work out how I feel about these two things. Right off, they make me feel like a failure. But I could also think of it as "being smart." I just can't help feeling like I'm taking the easy way out and being lazy. People lead life groups and have a ton of work all the time, right? I kind of feel like I'm just making excuses. But I honestly read ALL weekend. There wasn't time for anything else. And I have been praying about where I should be next year, if there's a particular place God wants me. And all I feel is that I need to move on. I've been involved with XA for 5 years now, and I feel like it's time for a change. I want to start living in the real world because I'm not going to do XA forever. I want to meet women who are working and have families who I can learn from before I try and do that myself. I'm just ready. About the thesis postponement, yeah, it makes me feel like I'm long-term procrastinating, but it's just one quarter, and I didn't know what I'd do during spring quarter anyway. I'm just glad it relieves a little more pressure right now.

I'm reading Invisible Man now. For my final paper in 20th century American fiction, I'm thinking about writing about identity and how it is formed by other people or if it's even really connected to others at all. The narrator of All the King's Men seems to have some contrasting views of this subject. One time he says that you are who you are, but you need others to help you find out who you are. This seems to imply that who you are doesn't change with others, but you need them in order to know who you are. Kind of makes me think, "If a tree falls in the forest but no one hears it, did it really fall?" (or my favorite variation from Kate and Leopold, "If a man unloads the dishwasher, but the woman doesn't see him do it, did he really do it?"). I don't know. I'm only a bit into Invisible Man right now, but there has been talk so far of how everyone's fates are intertwined, so I'm thinking this could work together nicely. I'm going to have to think about this a bit more.

On a side note, I'd like it to stop being cold in the morning. I want to lay out on my roof and read and ride my bike to campus.


I'll leave you with a favorite poem of mine:

Words
-Dana Gioia

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other--
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper--
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always--
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.

the good lighthouse

We left Wednesday afternoon to go to Bryant, Arkansas for a mission trip with the ABS to help in the building process of La Iglesia Bautista El Faro. For the next three days, we got up at 6:30 and got back to the hotel around 4:00 to get ready for dinner. Those dinners and most lunches were the most food I'd eaten in a long time. Each day, we'd have a project to work on - we made 55 tees (studs, I believe), I don't remember how many corners, and they made about 80...oh I can't remember what they were called, either. Anyway, all of this consisted of nailing 2 x 4s together in different ways. So by the third day, my hands and wrists hurt so bad that I couldn't help with the last project of hammering. I stayed at the old church and helped Dane paint something like 200 chairs. We got to use a paint sprayer. That was a first, Mr. Danny. We had to wear hard hats the whole time at the site, as you can see in the picture. That was also a first.

The trip was led by the ABS sponsors, Danny and Karan Eddy. They are amazing people. They get along so well, Mr. Danny is always laughing or joking, even when something's going wrong, and they treated us like adults, in every way. It was refreshing. When something needed to be done, they would show us how, if we didn't know how, and then they'd move on to something else, not needing to watch us or anything. I guess it's just been a while since I've been on a mission trip, or worked on something like this, and it's different now.

We ate at the coolest pizza place ever. It was called Larry's Pizza, and Larry was actually walking around talking to us while we ate. People would walk around offering different kinds of pizza that they were carrying. A walking buffet. This was not your average pizza buffet, though. I had slices of ham and pineapple, chicken fajita, bavarian, chocolate chip, chicken alfredo, and buffalo chicken pizza. There were so many other kinds, too, but we were all about to die because we ate so much. Larry would also make any kind of pizza you wanted if you asked.

We got to go to their Spanish church service Sunday afternoon right before we left. I've been to my share of these, and I always love going. I was really sleepy by that point in the trip, though. I really liked the pastor of the church. I didn't know if he spoke English, so I walked up to him and said hi and asked, but he seemed to not want to, so we spoke in Spanish for a while and then everyone else came up and he started speaking English probably better than I speak Spanish. Of course. Dane even spoke in Spanish to him a little bit! Dane's also learning Hebrew right now. He's doing really well, and he's trying to teach me as he learns, but it's hard to just hear it a few times and I can't do the throaty "ch" very well. He loves Israel and Hebrew, so is trying to learn so we can go one day. I started reading a book about Israel in Barnes and Noble the other day in Little Rock, but I can't help but think the author is biased. I mean, obviously, he is, but I feel like I should read a book written by a Christian and then one by someone who's not writing for the same purpose, so I can get a full overview of the topic.

Back to the trip... I roomed with a girl I had never met before named Jana. I don't think that could have gone better. It was so much fun with her. After the first 5 minutes of being in the room together, it kind of seemed like we'd known each other a long time. I really hope I have time to go to ABS things more this quarter.

Speaking of the coming quarter... We start back tomorrow. I'm supposed to be researching for my thesis as I type this. I'm going to do it when I'm done, though. (Sadly, that's been my motto the last few days, and I just keep saying it). I need to get that done by at least halfway through the quarter. The earlier, the better.

I got to talk to Dr. Martin about this before we went to Arkansas, and it was really helpful. I finally figured out how to articulate that what intrigues me so much is Gioia's darkness and spirituality, more or less. The paper I wrote for Dr. Lewis about Gioia's "The Song" dealt with his use of the subjunctive to reveal his uncertainty about the afterlife. So, Dr. Martin suggested a few others who seem to do the same sort of thing in their poetry, including Dickinson, who I don't understand how I didn't make the connection to! And Snodgrass and, sigh, Stevens. I just cannot get into him! I don't understand any of his poems.. I don't know what it is. The way he writes or something just does not connect with anything in my mind. Dane said that's how he feels when he reads all poetry, haha. But it makes sense! If people read Wallace Stevens and think "Wow, I like that," and apparently they do, then I guess I just might not ever get it. But I do need to TRY with "Sunday Morning" because it's got some of the same themes going as in Gioia. I read it over, though, and I don't get it. But I'm going to keep trying. Sounds like I'm trying to have a baby.

Dane and I, and maybe Caleb and Valerie, are going to see Alice in Wonderland today! I'm excited. I've been wanting to see it, and Dane didn't really want to, but when I couldn't find anyone else to come, he said he'd go with me :)