Realizing the Dream and Living through Lectures

One of my classes is called "Immigration and Assimilation in the U.S." The lectures are powerpoint presentations online with our professor reading his lecture script as a voice-over. The subject matter is interesting, but he speaks at such a slow cantar, it can be mind-numbing to listen to more than two in a row.

Trying to keep myself occupied, I turned on some music in my iTunes player and played with the volume levels until I could listen to lecture AND some instrumental music. My music of choice? The Lord of the Rings soundtracks.

Now whatever my professor is saying sounds dramatic, as an epic score swells behind his words, lifting them up out of their mediocrity and into grandiosity.

Lectures are much more interesting now. And I am ever-the-more convinced that everything in life deserves a soundtrack.

I Don't Want Your Party

Brace yourselves: I'm diving into politics. Much as I don't want to, it's all around me, impossible to ignore. And we shouldn't - as Catholics and Christians, we are called to be in the world, but no of it, meaning we can't abandon the world to self-destruct around us as we stay in our church and family bubbles.

To which a small voice in my head says Boo-hiss.

Barack Obama is now our president elect (I'm not going to comment on the fact that Blogger thinks both of his names are misspellings). Madison has been a temple for this man. It's close to worship. Which scares me on the 1st level. But St. Paul's is a safe-haven of conservatism. In one environ, it's so clear that the biggest issue is the pro-life movement (including abortion AND euthanasia), but when you step outside, it looks like the economy and issues of social justice are what need to be addressed.

Catholics are often put in a difficult position. Catholic Social Teaching rests on the basic principle of the dignity of the human person from conception to natural death. Taking care of the poor, health care, international politics - on these issues, I am of a democratic mind-frame. And it's usually how I identify myself. But as I feel more called to be a mother, and with all the new mothers and babies around me, I realize that I have to be fiercely pro-life. It used to not be a problem to be a pro-life democrat, but now the party lines have been drawn so clearly, a democratic candidate would be shooting himself in the foot by being pro-life. Though I can never stop hoping.

I wouldn't mind it if Obama didn't have a strong stance on abortion. His supporters don't think he does, but he's made it clear through his promises to Planned Parenthood what he thinks of it. He has promised to lower the age when a girl can have an abortion and not tell her parents to 13. THIRTEEN. It breaks my heart to think of 13 year old girls being sexually active, and disgusted with our society. Obama has also said that he plans to approve FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) as one of his first orders of business. Please please please do some research on this. I can't articulate it well enough, but it needs to be known. Obama wants to make abortions even easier to get than they are now. He supports abortions to be performed throughout all nine months of pregnancy. With Partial-Birth abortions, a baby who is fully formed, ready to greet the world, can still be killed as he or she comes out of the womb. I worry for our country on the 2nd level - heck, even the 3rd, 4th, and 5th levels.

Abortion is never the main issue for me. It is a symptom of a greater problem. It shows a contempt for life. It is an escape route for those who don't want to take responsibility for the consequences of having sex. And it takes it out on a completely innocent child. People say all the time, "I wouldn't get an abortion, but if someone wants one, they should be able to get one." BULL.CRAP. That's like saying, "I would never steal a plasma TV, but if someone wants to, they should be able to." The government tells us what to do all the time, not to restrict us, but for the health and benefit of the society. Stealing is an ethical choice, but if everyone did it, we would descend into anarchy. The rise in abortions points to the fact that our American society does not value the lives of others first and foremost - it only values the individual.

Which is why I'm scared on so so so many other levels.

Handling Frustration

I am currently on my fifth over-the-phone attempt at reconnecting our internet with AT&T. I have had more than a few choice words to say about the company, and about Charter. If large, monopolizing companies had souls, those souls would burn (or freeze) in the deepest circle of hell. Every other attempt before now has failed because a) the phone I was using to make the call would drop the connection (my cell phone is also AT&T, they’re sure hittin’ ‘em out of the park) or b) I was on hold for over 15 min, and 15 minutes of garbled muzak is enough to drive anyone batty.

I made two of these calls late Thursday morning. I had to hang up the phone after 15 minutes because I was another 15 minutes away from walking into daily Mass. I knew that if I stayed on the line any longer, I would be frustrated beyond belief and wanting to take it out on anyone around me.

Not exactly the kind of attitude one should have before receiving the Eucharist.

I’ve seen a lot of this attitude in myself lately, and it’s scaring me. I’ve long known that I get flustered and panicked when I have a plan, and something goes wrong. A surprise gets thrown into my schedule, something I don’t think I have time to handle, usually completely out of my control. I FREAK. OUT. Crying is ofttimes a by-product. I feel like the world is crashing down around me.

It’s something I’m trying to work on.

So lately, it’s been manifesting itself in anger. Pure, unmitigated anger. I immediately regret showing a friend, or even someone I don’t know, less respect and care than I know they deserve. A woman who works in the ILS department called me out on it, saying that an e-mail sounded a little “snippy”. I still feel horrible about that. My problems shouldn’t affect other people in this way. I should be able to control myself. I should have enough peace in my heart to not let frustrations and anger get to me. The key word is, of course, “should”.

I stumbled on a blog post from Jenn at Conversion Diary that helped me think about it. For the vast majority of days when I get angry, I haven’t prayed. Things in my day go so much more smoothly when I start the day with prayer. As much time as I can manage, sometimes just a moment to dedicate my day and the work that I do to God. And I can see God’s sense of humor pretty clearly as He tries to impress upon me the importance of prayer. And it’s not like God rewards me with a good day when I’ve come to Him first; things are simply put into perspective after spending time with God. I can see Him in others much more clearly. I have the motivation (namely, love) to do everything with excellence. I know that these things will all pass away, that these little bumps in the road aren’t enough to toss the car off the road.

And so I pray through writing while the open phone sits on my stomach, issuing that horrid, horrid music, waiting for a service representative to answer my call. It’s probably been almost a half an hour now. I’m upset that a company does not staff enough people to handle demand. But I think I can separate the person on the other end of the phone (thank God! A real person!) with the bureaucracy that makes me want to boycott this company. After all, that has to be the most thankless job. They don’t need one more irate customer making their day a living hell.

Update: I was on hold for an hour and a half while I typed this. Then the recorded voice was kind enough to tell me that the office was... closing. That's right, closing at 5pm without taking my call. Deep breaths. Practicing patience, practicing patience, practicing patience...

What Starbucks does to Life's Lemons

I started taking private voice lessons with the director of my choir, Bruce Gladstone. The man is FABULOUS. It's one of the most fun hours of my week (ballroom dance class ranks up there too). I've already learned so much - I walked around all last week telling everyone, "Do you know how big your vocal chords are? They're the size of your thumbnail!!!"

Bruce doesn't just teach voice, he teaches important life lessons. Aside from the exciting trivia about tiny body parts, I learned a bit of Alexander method, which is a way for lengthening the body, making me look taller and giving my torso better air flow. This week, due to a cold, I was instructed to start neti potting, and to try steamed lemonade from Starbucks. I was also told to speak a third higher in pitch than I normally do, but that's not the point.

Steamed lemonade?

But it was actually quite tasty, and it felt gorgeous on my poor larynx. So now I feel it's my duty to alert the world to steamed lemonade - a drink that is tasty, cheap (by Starbucks standards), and good for your throat. Who ever knew something so good could come out of a huge, monopolizing corporation?

Get well soon, students of Madison.

Priorities

I said I would be better about writing. I thought I would have more time during the summer to spend on this blogging thing. The obvious truth is that I didn’t follow up, for valid reasons. I felt a little lost this summer, and talking about things on which I only have a cursory knowledge (politics, current events… anything you’d find on NPR) to an unknown audience didn’t exactly appeal to me. There were certainly things that I discovered, and wanted to share with the world (and I still plan to – just wait for retrospective posts!), yet even when I was excited about something, I never got around to typing it out.

Thus comes my second valid reason. I found myself in front of a computer five hours a day as my work load became more specialized at the library. I couldn’t complain – I was learning lots more stuff, honing in my desire and possible vocation to librarianship – and you couldn’t pay me to sit in front of one after work. With the library being so understaffed, I couldn’t bring myself to log on during work, either.

All of this points to a bigger thesis, one that’s been on my mind all summer. Life is full of decisions, some of them obvious and others to which you don’t give a second thought. You were going to hang out with a friend, but your brother’s in town. You could read for a bit, but end up spending an hour on facebook. In fact, every time you make a commitment, even just hanging out with friends, you are inherently saying no to a multitude of other activities. But you don’t even think about all those other things.

These are, simply, priorities.

Everyone has them. Very few people have the same ones. For instance, my top priorities tend to be family, work, good friends, and if I’m good, God. Ok, a lot of people share these. I’m not special. But how do I spend my time when I’m alone? This summer I watched a lot of movies. Read a few books, but not as many as I would have liked. Played piano not at all. Wrote here with rarity. And the point is that you almost cannot help what things you make a priority. You simply have a stronger desire to do some activities over others. I know lots of guys who make video games a priority. But face me with the choice to make dinner with a friend or play video games alone? The answer is obvious. Of course, we should not be ruled by our desires, but by our self-discipline. I can’t tell you how many times this summer I chose video games over praying, because the former was easier than the latter. I lacked discipline. Though we can say that God is a major priority in our lives, do we do anything about it?

In the same way, writing is something that I do not find very easy. But I wanted to get better at it, and with all things, practice makes perfect. Again, I lacked discipline. I thought I had made writing a priority, but there is hardly ANYTHING in my expensive, leather-bound journal, and if I can’t write anything that stays between God and myself, how can I write anything of value on this silly webpage?

Written word takes priority over internet word. And as for this blog, I can’t promise anything during this, my final year of undergraduate studies. I’ll try, but in my list of priorities, the world that is in front of me will always rank above that of the virtual.

Summer

"It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater."
-Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

You can't see things clearly in the dark. Very often, you don't even have the experience to call what you are in 'darkness'. It's all around you. The only way we can identify darkness for what it is, is to compare it with light.

I never know how lost I am until I've been found.

Fidelity

Every day at 5:20pm, a Korean father and his little girl, six years old or so, come into the library, head straight to the elevator, and come back down maybe five minutes later with the mother in tow. And I love it. I love everything about it. The story I tell myself is that he's a stay-at-home dad (part-time or full-time), maybe also in grad school, and the mom is working her butt off on her own degree. Mom spends all day (or half-a-day, I never see her come in) in the library, writing her doctorate. Then they go home together to make and eat dinner, and relax.

Seems like a standard life of a higher-education couple. They seem comfortable. And the fact that they come to pick up mom every day speaks the language of comfortable, family love. She doesn't have to drive home herself, listening to the radio and feeling exhaustion overtake her. She doesn't have to think bitterly about cooking dinner for her family. She doesn't have to dwell on all the work she has to do tomorrow, and the endless tasks required on the road to her PhD. That can be a lonely drive, right there.

Instead, her husband and daughter come to her and gently remind her that it's time to put everything else away, and simply be a wife and mother for the rest of the evening. It shows gentleness on the part of the husband, and grateful humility on the part of the wife. Most days, the girl is excited to see her mom, and sometimes she's tired. Most days, they all walk out the handicap door (the girl likes to push the button) in single file, and sometimes mom carries her daughter on her back.

That's the kind of routine I could be happy with.

Silence and Solitude

This summer is turning out to be nothing like my summer of '06. I was in Madison that year, working as a custodian for University Housing, and just finished with my freshman year of college. I barely knew anyone. I barely did anything. I spent a lot of time by myself.

And that wasn't half bad.

I actually have to use my planner this summer - how ridiculous! For example, this week's after-work schedule is:
Monday - Movie on the Terrace
Tuesday - Bible Study
Wednesday - Concerts on the Square
Thursday - Theology on Tap
Friday - blissfully open
(Saturday - wedding in Milwaukee)

Lots of noun-preposition-noun activities; something on/in something. I should start calling it, "Bible in a Study". That would bring true harmony to my schedule.

It's great to be around friends so much, and good to keep busy getting everything one can from one's Madison summer. But... there's always a but. I feel tired. In summer! This is supposed to be a time of rest and recuperation. I'm getting plenty of sleep, and spending much more time cooking good meals. But the reason I'm tired is pretty obvious for someone like me.

I'm not spending any time alone, and very little time with God.

During the school year, you feel like there is no time to pray, but you'll have more time in the summer. Even those of us who know this isn't true fall into that mindset. It's the temptation to stash things away in the future, to believe that things will all be great later, so you don't have to change anything right now. It's the circumstances that have to change, not me. We tell this to ourselves over and over, consciously and subconsciously, and now that we find ourselves almost done with June, we wonder, as Dr. Seuss once did, "How did it get so late so soon?"

Time goes quickly (I cannot bring myself to say that it "flies") when you're busy. That's why it seems to speed up exponentially as we get older. What 5 year-old is busy, in the way we are? (I hope you don't actually have an answer for that.) My summer time seems to be slipping away from me, as sand through my fingers. And the harder I try to hold onto it, the faster it spurts out of my hands. If I hold my hands steady and still, the sand runs at its natural pace. Steady and still... like in meditation. God speaks through our lives, sure enough. But if we don't take time to turn to Him and say,

"I'm listening"

His voice can get lost in everything else we are hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, experiencing. Take time to sit and empty all your thoughts. If possible, do it outside (it's been beautiful). Breathe in fresh air. And tell God that this is His time. It's not enough to expect Him to shout above the noise. We have to provide the quiet.

Reflections on 21

"You turned 21 on Saturday? Now you're completely legal!" my boss said this morning.
"Except to rent a car," I joked.

It can get old when people ask, "do you feel any different?" after a birthday. Of course you don't feel any different, it was just another day passing. It's not because of the day that you grow older, but because of the things that those milestone birthdays allow you to do. Turning 16 isn't momentous until you actually pass your license test. Turning 18 doesn't mean a whole lot until you vote in an election, or sign yourself out of school without a parent signiture (whoa! dream big). The world doesn't change when you turn 21 if you drank every weekend from middle school.

But even for me - the rare, casual, consumer of alcohol - my 21st birthday felt like just another day. It was the bars that changed everything.

I'm only slightly ashamed to admit, as any innocent young thing would be, that being part of the midnight crowd altered my view. Whenever I drove down University Avenue at that time of night, I saw the scantily-clad girls and guys in baseball caps overflowing into the street, and, in my pride, scoffed at their behavior. I considered them lower than myself, because they were spending their evening drunk while I was out ballroom dancing or talking to a friend about God.

Needless to say, I got knocked off my ivory tower and slapped around with the big hand of humility. I knew, of course, that I would enjoy going out with friends; what I didn't expect to realize was that:
1)People at the bars are rarely drunk. Usually just tipsy or buzzed.
2)People who are slightly buzzed (possibly including myself) are a lot of fun to be around and talk to.

Now at the end of the night, I would hate for that fun and excitement to be what fulfills me. Because it doesn't. It's sugary, light, fun - like cotton candy. But you can't subsist on cotton candy. You've got to eat real food. And suddenly, I sound just like Jesus in the gospel of John, chapter 6...

I'm excited, giddy, and altogether astounded that we have the real food of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is one of the things that I love about being Catholic, and a Truth of the Catholic Church that I wholeheartedly believe in, though I can't explain why. Maybe it seems illogical. I don't care. What I have felt, especially over the past few years, in the presence of the Eucharist can't simply be thrown aside. And so, like Peter at the end of this passage, I look to God when things are difficult, when I'm so tired of fighting for my own will, and just say, "Lord, to whom would I go?"

This is it. There is no going back. Not to a time when I decry bar-hopping, and not to a place where I'm not Catholic. This is my present. Now I have to decide what my future will be.

*Exits singing "I have confidence in sunshine! I have confidence in rain!...*

Floooooooood!

Southern Wisconsin received a torrential downpour in the last few days. It's horrible to drive in, it comes into open windows usually blocked by eaves, it creates pools where there were none before.

And it floods our house.

Not a lot (mom, dad, don't freak out), but enough to cause concern. Our basement is carpeted, and 4 girls, including me, sleep down there. One of the bedrooms had less than an inch of standing water on Sunday night, and lots of moist carpet. The ground is so sodden that it's seeping in through the foundation, which I've heard whispered may have a crack or two. I never would have thought that this would be a recurring problem in the past two years. Something they don't tell you when you sign a lease.

I wish we could set up defenses against the upcoming storms, like sandbags or something. Not like that would really stop water traveling through soil. We'll see if we survive this week. We may be afloat before you know it.

Prodigal Books

By the grace of God, I got my library job back for the summer. I'm glad to be back - it was almost like I never left. Except of course there are now new people I must meet, and there's an odd sort of tension with coming back, because students who have worked there all year don't know me, but I probably know more about the library than they do. I left the library, but things continued on. The Google Project, to which I still feel like a godmother, was given to the care of another student. It's been a mini, subculture-shock. Life goes on without me. A necessary thing for one to learn in one's 20s.

One of my favorite parts of working at circulation is when a patron hands you a book to return, walks off, and only moments later the computer tells you that the book has been marked as 'Lost'. I feel a maternal sense of joy. Lost books are like children coming back home. I want to hold the book tight in my arms and welcome it back to the UW-Madison Library family. Books have to be gone for a long time to acquire the label 'Lost' in the system. Usually, a patron will claim that he/she returned it, then they find it months or even years later, and bring it back with a sheepish glint in their eye - a "you were right, I was wrong" look. I know it would be absolutely impossible (and completely against the purpose of a library), but I wish I could somehow retrieve every single book in our collection. It would be such a satisfying, full feeling. I like having all my proverbial ducks in a row - or rather, in a cardboard box for just a moment before I let them all go free again. I just want to have all the pieces there, to experience a moment of unity in a world that is fragmented.

What a Picture is Worth

My parents have satellite TV. I don't. When I visit home, it's difficult to think of the other things I should be doing when captivated by all-day marathons of Project Runway and Mythbusters. It's sad, I know. The bright colors and shining lights hypnotize my brain, made weak by school. I'm weak - and that manipulative box is just sooo inviting.

Like I mentioned, Project Runway has been a new discovery. Last time I was home, it was America's Next Top Model. I don't think it's in my moral constitution to watch ANTM when it's actually on... but somehow, I can give in to reruns. The product of watching these competition shows is that I'm filled with:
1) a desire to shop
2) a sense of creativity
3) the wish that I had a personal photographer
4) the really strong wish that I was photogenic.
I'm not sure if it's a hobby particular to our generation, the generation of digital cameras, but the pastime "Photo Shoot" has been running rampant in the last few years. Some might say this is reflective of our self-seeking society, which might be harsh. I'm not going to deny it: I like to see some kind of proof that I'm pretty. Yet that can't be it. There's something else that draws young women to spend afternoons taking pictures of each other.
I just don't know what it is yet.

End of School and a Haircut: Two Bits

Every time I remember I'm done with junior year, I sigh in relief. Spring semester is gonegoneGONE! I never have to have dreaded Shakespeare class, make intense page-long language trees, or pretend to care about anthropology EVER AGAIN. Well, I'll probably have to make language trees next year. It is my major, after all.

My class line-up for next semester is as follows:
English Phonology
Immigration and Assimilation in the U.S.
Early Christianity: Matthew - Revelation
Ballroom II
Chorale
Senior Thesis

Oh baby. Three real classes, two fun 1-credits, and my thesis. I start thesis research this summer, so details will come later. But I'm excited.

I got a haircut this morning - and feel I have, in some way, reverted back to the days of high school. My hair's short and curly again. It's layered, and probably is what I envisioned my hair to be like in high school. But instead of getting a perm, I am simply embracing the curl. I've ignored it for the past three years. Well, no longer. No longer, I tell you! Look out, world - Katie's rockin' the curl again.

First Stab at Memoir

I have to write what is generously called a "memoir" for my ILS class, about my childhood in the world of theater. This is the first bit I wrote consciously for it. Note: I exaggerate, but not about my memories.

There’s a musical going on at St. Paul’s right now. It’s called The Garden, written by two of our staff members (sort of). I think it’s overly similar to Stephen Schwartz’ Children of Eden, but they didn’t really ask me in the creative process. I’m not in the show, mainly because I couldn’t commit to rehearsals. But I was enlisted to do the technical things no one else had time to do. I painted the glass doors of the building as a temporary billboard advertisement. And I made curtains to fill the entrances into the chapel.

As I handled the ten and a half yards of grey, velvet upholstery fabric, folding and flipping it smooth, I saw myself when I was 10 years old. In the basement of the State Theater, for a time, there were large, large bins (at least 10’x 4’x 4’) filled with old curtains. Lovely, heavy, curtains. I had a playmate in those days, I think her name was Abi, and we crawled all over those curtains. We took naps in them, tried to hide beneath them, went between the bins like they were border lines for countries. The tough part was getting into the bins. Absolutely worth the effort. The building managers moved them every once in a while, and then the game became new again.

My 20-year-old self held the finished curtains tight to my chest and rubbed my check against the velvet. That’s comfort. In all my years at the State, one of my favorite things to do was wrap myself in the curtains that were hanging in the theater space. I liked having that kind of weight and substance around me. It made me feel safe.

It makes me feel safe.

I'm Still Here

Hey all,

Well, March just up and passed me by. The further I've gotten into the semester, the more I've realized how bloody difficult it is. I don't really enjoy my classes, save my ILS class. Classwork has been difficult, for no specific reason. It's just been hard.

Also, I must admit, all my best blogging ideas get snatched up by my response papers for ILS 275. Sorry 'bout that. I know I'll be back in full force at the end of the academic year.

I'm glad spring is making a comeback.

The Voices

I made an observation in class the other day: that I try to make irregular verbs out of regular verbs in my head. I was folding laundry last week, and when I thought the word "folded" I abruptly asked myself, "or is it FELD?" We don't say holded - we say HELD. This has been bothering me lately, but my professor was far more interested in the fact that I have an internal conversation in my head.

Excuse me? You DON'T?!

I thought everyone talked to themselves in their heads. Sure, I've long accepted that they all don't think in complete scentences like I do (true statement), but we have to use words and language to think through certain things. It can't just be images and abstract things flying through the brain. I think it's the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics that says you can't even develop abstract ideas like, say, justice or education without language.

And Americans are constantly reading. Reading advertisements, reading novels, reading "In case of emergency, use stairs". And you're telling me that your brain doesn't just keep going with the silent reading, even when there aren't words in front of you?

Ok, fair enough. Maybe I am strange.

Would Hell be any colder than this?

I like to think of Hell the way Dante paints it: the deepest circle of Hell is frozen ice, because it is the farthest removed from the warmth of God's love.

Hard not to think of that in this long, bitter winter.

The most remarkable thing about the cold in Wisconsin isn't the cosine wave of temperatures, making it rain one day and freeze the next. Nor is it the possibility of ice quakes in Lake Mendota, which cause all the lakeshore buildings to quiver briefly, as if a giant had tried playing patty cake with them. It's our failure to find any other subject matter to be used in small talk.

Everyone has their own prefered topics of small talk. Mine is currently the progress of the Writer's Strike, and how that's affected life. Yet we all have this one thing in common. This one thing that unites us to get behind a stranger's car and heave it out of its rut. We all suffer together, and in the cold, we find solidarity.

I stand behind my belief that it is dull to talk about the weather everywhere else in the country, but in Wisconsin, it's just so damn fascinating.

Extended Mardi Gras

About a week before Ash Wednesday, I realized that I wanted to push my fasting goals to the extreme (ok, extreme for me). I knew I needed to give up sweets.

I have an enormous sweet tooth. I'm a slave to that small piece of chocolate after a meal, or any kind of sweetened baked good sitting in the kitchen. No matter what time of day. I've eaten pie for breakfast (and slightly ashamed to admit that). I usually shy away from giving up dietary things, choosing to go for something a bit more abstract, because I don't want it to become about losing weight or anything like that. But I knew this would be the best form of sacrifice for God. I want my spirit to be able to control my flesh.

The side effect of this decision was that I entered an Extended Mardi Gras, starting that day. If there was a sweet thing in sight, I went for it. No holds barred. My tongue wasn't very happy with me by Sunday - I can develop sore spots on my tongue when I eat too many sweets, which hurt when I eat more sweet things. This week-long indulgence in my future fast made me realize how bad I CAN be. I really pursued sugary things with intense ferver. From one extreme to the other - probably not the best decision.

I have moderated my fast by allowing myself one hot chocolate on Sundays. Sundays don't technically count in the numbering of Lent, because every Sunday is like a mini-Easter. We celebrate the resurrection of our Lord every week. I'm usually an advocate of the all-out fast, straight through. But in this case... give me a break, it's winter, and hot chocolate is always my drink of choice. Six out of seven days I will turn to tea instead.

Also, as it is impossible to cut all sweetness from your diet, I'm not counting fruit and honey in my fast (they're natural). Which means that I will be eating A LOT of raisins this Lent.

Arrangement

I've found a new obsession.

Arranging popular songs for a capella choir.

I'm not practiced at it, I have little to no background in music composition, and I've never been in an a capella choir. But I hope to be some day. I thought I would have to wait until next year (when I audition for the co-ed group on campus, Redefined) to start putting songs together. I told a friend that I wanted to arrange one of my favorite songs ("Trouble" by Over the Rhine), and he replied, "Do it." It hadn't really occurred to me to go ahead with this desire. But why not? Nothing's holding me back. I have a friend in the group already, so maybe I can slip her some of my stuff before I audition.

Songs on the list to be arranged:
Trouble by Over the Rhine
Hold On by KT Tunstall
Love Song by Sara Bareilles
The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band
Queen Medley

Wish me luck!

That Was a Long December

I return from my hiatus, largely due to final exams in December kicking my ass and leaving me for dead. And I don't post at home because, well, most of the people who read this blog are gathered in one house.

I've spent my days back in Madison lazing around in my bathroom, piling up dishes for an hour-long washing at the end of the night, and slowly taking care of things I'd put off for weeks, months, even years. I finished a no-sew tie blanket that I've had for about two years (bringing the amount of said blankets in the house to a whopping four), watching Stranger Than Fiction and three episodes of Alias.

I went to fill a prescription that I should have started a month ago, a medication called spironolactone. I came out of Walgreens on the Square, surprised to see the bus I was going to catch 10 minutes early. As I considered what a stroke of luck that the no. 2 bus was early, the bus turned down E. Washington - the opposite direction I wanted to go. I was treated to a jaunty trip to the East Transfer Point. Not horrible; I simply caught the no. 2 bus going to the WEST Transfer Point from there, and caught up on an episode of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, a current events quiz show on NPR, via podcast.

Returning to the topic of medications and perhaps divulging a bit too much information, the main side effect of spironolactone is increased urination. WAY increased. The doctor recommended that I drink 8 glasses of water a day. And don't plan any long, outdoor camping trips. Ok, she didn't say that, but this increase in bathroom attendence is already stunning me. Spironolactone (which, if I haven't said before, is an experiment with my acne) is a suppressing drug, meaning that, if it works, I would probably need to keep taking it for 2 years minimum, maybe even for the rest of my life. That's a lot of peeing.