In Which I Am Alive

Today was my last day of one of my favorite jobs. For the past year and a half, I've worked as a writing tutor for BYU's Writing Fellows program. While it has been wonderful being able to combine my love for writing with my passion for teaching, and increase my skills in both areas, I think the best part of this job was in the bizarre and wonderful Writing Fellows culture. I mean, how many people can say that their job has a theme song (with an official band to boot)? Or a never-empty cookie jar in the office? Because of Writing Fellows, I've gotten paid to talk to new people, and to share my knowledge and experience. I've had many chances to improve my own writing and help others improve theirs. I've learned to treasure the moment when someone who has never considered herself a writer realizes how to express her thoughts in a clear, effective, and even beautiful way. There's just something kind of magical about seeing someone discover that beautiful writing i...

Sometimes...I really want to post something in my blog. Just so I can point at something and say, "See! I'm still creative! I created that block of text right there on the screen!" And I want to solidify many of the thoughts bouncing around in my brain about love and truth and freedom and uncertainty and ukuleles and how badly I want to have a classroom to set up and why I love pizza so much... but...I'm just...really tired. And my brain is foggy from studying. Also, I think my mental functions have frozen as a result of the frigid temperatures outside. Seriously, I do not ever remember a Utah winter this cold, and I've lived here for almost 23 years. Suffice it to say, people, my life is great. And I'm learning a lot every day and spending time with people I love and having adventures whenever I can and trying to suck the most experience I can out of this thing called life while contributing at least a little bit to the world's net happiness. Al...

They said the world would end this week, So I went sledding, and hugged my family, and sang a lot Spoke my love to the ones who have my heart And stopped worrying about the future, because why worry about something that doesn't exist? However, just in case the world didn't end I learned and felt and lived, saving up knowledge and ideas and memories for later I continued to create, as if someone would be left to see the results. I made plans, no...I spun dreams. They said the world would end this week It didn't. But who knows about next week?

I've realized something; I blog less when things are good. Not necessarily because most of my blogging is complaining; I think I've written some surprisingly upbeat posts when depressed. However, I think for me, writing serves two main purposes: channeling emotions and escaping them, with the occasional celebratory moment. So I'm gonna switch things up a little and blog on a happy day: I'm in a new apartment, in my old ward. I miss living with my family, having my dad's office in the next room over, playing with my sisters, wrestling with my brother, and following my mom around the house. I miss my amazingly soft bed with its scads of pillows, which I've now traded for a top bunk that feels like a pile of bricks. But I love being back in my second home, right by campus. I feel like my old friends and neighbors have given me such a warm welcome back. I love that I'm right by JDawgs, Spoon it Up, Awful Waffle, and Slab. I'm a huge fan of my classes thi...

Sometimes I go back and read my old posts, and change around the words and phrases I don't like. Because I can't do it in real life, so it's nice to be able to do it somewhere . In fact, I just did it with this post. One full paragraph, GONE. Just because I can.

Guys. Guys. I just realized something. That last post I wrote was my 100st post to be published on this blog! (We're not counting the ones that never made it onto the wall. And yes, that is 100 st  not 100 th. ) So, yeah. Celebration. Happy, happy, happy... Okay, let's be honest, my heart's not really in it anymore. I think about blogging a lot, but in the end I haven't done much of it because I don't have much to say. I don't feel that same desperation to get all my thoughts and ideas onto the Internet posthaste. That's not to say that I've stopped thinking about interesting things, or that I'm not clever or awesome anymore (insert winking face), it's just that I don't feel alone anymore. Remember last summer, when I wrote ALL THE TIME? I didn't really have anyone to reach out to, anyone I felt safe talking to. So flinging my thoughts into cyberspace, hoping that someone would read, understand, and respond, was the best I can do. But...

I miss my blog. That's really all I have to say. Or rather, all I should say. I'm writing a research paper. But my brain keeps jamming up. I keep having all these awesome ideas for blog posts and no time to write them in. And I just really miss my blog. I like to think my blog (and my readership?) misses me too. And so, I hope to write again. Something actually interesting and clever and long and funny. In the meantime, here is a comic for you, about our two favorite Romantic pianists !

So once upon a time, I started to write a blogpost and not publish it. Sometimes typing things in blog form helps me think through things, but this was kind of a gooey/sentimental/sensitive post that I didn't want to make public. So I wrote it, and it was poorly written but that was ok because it was just for me. And then I accidentally hit publish. If you happened to be on my blog in the exact right 3 minute window, you got to read it. You are lucky. I couldn't figure out how to delete a post (yes, I'm retarded). So I hit "edit," deleted all the text and hit "publish" again. Voila, an unsightly blank blog post. Then I got to thinking, "You know, that post wasn't half bad. With a little editing, it might even be worthy to publish again." I'm trying to learn to open up to people more, so maybe posting it would have been an ok idea. I thought I'd used cut and paste when I cleared the text, so with excitement, I hit edit agai...