"where the bullets get tired and fall, in the bright sky, bright sky"

I woke up this morning and thought to myself: "What's the point of all this again?" By which I mean, why am I waking up and going to chapel and class and all of that? Is there really a point?

So I didn't go.

I got up, actually took the time to make some breakfast, make a cappucino, put on some music, and do a lot of reading for my world views class. That way I wouldn't feel guilty for not doing anything all morning. It was actually good.

I didn't feel immediately better, but it payed off, I think.

And given also the fact that today was a beautiful day and I spent about four hours this afternoon in the studio with the window open and some music playing, I was able to get things done and still feel alright about life. Not as overwhelmed, not as burnt out, not as depressed. Almost like life is going to be alright, at some point, if I can hang in there long enough and not actually burn out but keep working.

And yesterday Greg got a job! It's a freelance sort of thing redesigning a homeschool math curriculum, and the project is expected to last about a year. He's already gotten started this morning, I think. How great is that? He was quite excited. That was the good part of yesterday. And our adventure grocery shopping at nearly midnight. And my roommate Katie's senior show proposal getting a great response in class.

Now? Now, dear readers, (I feel so 1800s when I call you "dear readers") I'm going in search of dinner before senior seminar class.

"But if I live I'll be coming back again
In the bright sky, bright sky."

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving: a tale of adventure. Traveling adventure. Culinary adventure. Gastrointestinal adventure.

I came, I ate, I got some kind of weird stomach flu, I left, I came back to school. (somehow not as cool as I can I saw I conquered.)

It was good to see my family again, both immediate and extended. Greg came with me, and I was surprised but pleased when it seemed fairly natural. I hope he felt more or less natural about it! = ) Never visit Lewistown Pennsylvania, avoid Ohio turnpikes in the rain, don't get the stomach flu, do get more of your reading done, and yet also do spend more time with your family. All at once, Mackenzie? Yes. All at once.

That's my advice for myself for next Thanksgiving break.

Funny thing about the stomach flu was, both of my brothers also came down with it. All of us were sick within an hour of one another on Friday night. And we hadn't even eaten any of the same things that day, so it must have been a virus of some kind.

Actually, though, coming back to school hasn't been so bad. Usually after a good break it's like pulling teeth to sit in classes again and think about how to get all my work done. But you know, today was all right. I meet with Professor Perrin on Mondays, so that's always a good start to the week. It leaves me feeling capable, encouraged, happy, like I can do this college thing, even if it is a lot of work. And then Tuesdays knock the stuffing out of me. Oh, well. Can't win 'em all.

Um. . . . yeah, so that's pretty much it. The end. Just to let you know I'm here and alive and kicking and back to work an' all that stuff. I won't be around this Saturday night, though, because I will actually be at another wedding. But I think we won't be having Pro Tempore anyway, because Lucy & Danielle will both be presenting papers at an undergraduate conference on medeival and renaissance studies.

Most rambling and pointless post ever? Yeah, I think so. But I guess I've been reading up on postmodernism for art seminar -- and postmodernism defies the Cartesian straightforwardness of purposed prose. So I'm on track. = D

"basically it's none of our business how somebody manages to grow, if only he does grow, if only we're on the trail of the law of our own growth."

-- Rilke

I like that quote of Rilke's so much.

I don't like this faith integration paper quite as much. It's difficult. So much of what I want to talk about is felt and not known, and so I'm having to search for some approximation of poetic language and form that will tell more than academic language, but will still be more accessible to my intended audience than my poetry would be.

I don't think Professor Prescott will like my paper much. I also think that this is an important paper for me to write, and I don't much care whether he likes it or not, because of what motivates Rilke's quote above.

Just two more days of school, and then it's Thanksgiving break, and then it's time to relax a little. Only if this paper gets under my skin I might be revising it all break instead. It might be worth it. It makes me laugh, though, to think that all, or almost all, my sources will be literary, and not visually artistic. And not academic in the least.

Mmmmm. . . . yes, basically, I wanted to share the Rilke quote. And then I think I'm done. Have a good break, if I don't talk to you before then!

"and though we had fallen into despair, you did not abandon us"

Today I thought I would share with you some of what I've been working on for my senior honors project. Not my own work -- but I am supposed to find an influence who will be the deep subterranean river under my understanding of poetry. For Elizabeth Bishop, that was George Herbert (you'll remember him, maybe, from Easter Wings fame).

Oddly enough, I am drawn to someone of a similar time period: John Donne. Maybe you'll remember me talking about how sketchy some of his sonnets are. Well, Donne is a fascinating character, because he does those extremely sketchy love sonnets (calling them sex sonnets would probably be more accurate)and then he does these extremely moving (but no less shocking) divine sonnets. He writes poems which exalt a woman as his angel and poems which deny the possibility that a woman could truly love. I'm trying to learn his idiom -- familiarize myself with it. Memorize a few poems. Take enough time with him to form an opinion of him which is entirely outside the academic understanding of his worth.

That means that you, gentle readers of this blog, may get dragged along a little bit for the ride. I'm still thinking liturgically from the alternate chapel this morning (remind me later to write in amazement at a clergyman who would come to Messiah every two weeks and lead a service and serve the host for just five or six students, and look as joyous as if he was serving an entire congregation of hundreds). That means that I am going to reproduce here two of his holy sonnets. I'll clean up the spelling a little as I go, where it doesn't affect the rhythm or sound. Ready? OK. Go.

I. Thou hast made me, And shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for mine end doth haste,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it t'wards hell doth weigh;
Onely thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
but our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour my self I can sustain;
Thy Grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like Adamant draw mine iron heart.

[You know what I like most about that one? It's incidental, but his spelling of only: "Onely." I didn't clean that one up because I feel like it's interesting. I feel so schizophrenic about God myself sometimes that I love the contrasting idea that he is one. Also, I love that the way he will be sustained is by an adamant blade plunging in and drawing out his iron heart. It's so against common sense. It's the same sense of paradox I get from the Bible itself, you know? In death is life. Draw my heart.]

XIV. Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie:
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

[This one makes me think of a baptism service I saw last Sunday. . . . Everyone had such different stories, different reasonings, except many of them said that they found God as a present help in times of trouble. Emmanuel, right? But I don't think anyone really understands the way that those those five minutes of anecdote and the promise of water dripped on the head, the slight commitment we are able to make, are taken and changed and lead us into strange places.]

OK. That's all. You're free to go, now. Maybe someday I will post my faith integration paper in installments, too. But don't count on it. I'm not such a huge fan of the academic mode of thought. What's more interesting to me is experience with something in which I do not feel mediated, for just one moment.

Thanksgiving? Oh yeah. It's only five days away. = D

what? mackenzie, actually academic?

OH MAN I KNOW I SHOULD NOT START TWO POSTS IN A ROW IN ALL CAPS BUT YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE IT! I WON A LIBRARY RESEARCH GRANT!

In conjunction with my English honors project, I applied for a research grant to go to Vassar College and see Elizabeth Bishop's poem manuscripts and travel journals. I wanted to study her patience in poem-writing, her revision methods, and see how she translated her travel experiences into poems by comparing her journals and the completed poems. And they actually liked the proposal and chose me as one of the two recipients of the grant money.

I mean, it's like, wow. I actually did something academic in my life. Academic and mildly competitive. Who knew?

"everyday she wears the same thing. i think she smokes pot. she's everything i want, she's everything i'm not."

THANKSGIVING IS ONLY EIGHT DAYS AWAY WOOHOO I AM SO EXCITED I CANNOT STAND IT WHEN IS BREAK GOING TO COME AND THEN CAN THE SEMESTER BE OVER WITHOUT ANY MORE HORRIBLE ASSIGNMENTS AT WHICH I FEEL LIKE I FAIL?

Hey, I think the coffee kicked in. That's good.

I have to say, there are a few things which are going very well. Work at the Office of Marketing and Public Relations swims forward like an unstoppable manatee-beast, king of the waters of all he surveys. My poetry project with Professor Perrin races forward apace of a great galloping gazelle. And, oddly enough, I am doing really well in and enjoying my lit class. Dr. Nisly keeps urging me to speak more in class, so I think I must not sound like an utter idiot. I always enjoy not-utter-idiocy.

I forgot to tell you that I posted over at the Jesus College blog last Friday, as per usual. I'm quite excited, because in the next issue of The Bridge, you will see my name! I will be published! By a press! In a magazine that real people read! Granted, I wrote very short pieces only. But still. I wrote short pieces in a magazine that's read by thousands of people. Wooh! Someday I will write longer pieces, too. It will be phenomenal. I will be a real writer when I grow up.

My roommates remain absolutely fabulous. And night-owls, but we still get along pretty good in spite of the fact that I pass out at midnight nearly every night, regular like clockwork. I am extremely happy that we decided to live together after Italy. I will be sad to see Katie graduate, and to not live with them any more (Elena will be around next year, but she will live with her contemporaries).

OK, loves. I will see you later. I will see some of you in eight days when it is Thanksgiving! DID I ALREADY SAY I AM MUCH EXCITED WOOH!

"i roll the window down and then begin to breathe in the darkest country road"

Hello. I forget what I was going to say, but I think it involved amazement at the huge box of candy that my mother sent me. Seriously, it weighs at least five pounds. Do you ever have the urge to spend pound with an ell? It confuses me. The abbreviation being lb., I mean, and the actual word being spelled pound.

Um, artistic influences? I'm not certain I have any, but I have to give a presentation tomorrow. Actually, I lied. I have plenty of artistic influences, and I have made sustained study of several artists. I am just afraid to explain why, and I am afraid that the influences I've adopted as my own are not the right influences -- whatever the heck it might mean to choose the right influences. As if there is some singular end goal.

I was talking to Professor Perrin, and I admitted quite frankly that I dislike literature, in part because I feel unequal to disputing with it. And so the canon in both literature and art makes it difficult for me to make things and claim my own place. But I'm supposed to hunt for some influences in any case, literarily, to be the subterranean stream under this year's poetry. She is very excited about my poems thus far, and I must say that I am also very excited through her excitement. Sometimes I feel that she is too nice, but I don't actually mind getting praise at all. I love getting praise, I admit. I am glad that one of my projects this semester is going so swimmingly. The rest are just barely completed or not getting done at all.

But at least I am still sleeping, and at least I am still having friends and at least my boyfriend is still my boyfriend and at least I still talk to my family even if it is not as often as it should be.

And Thanksgiving? Only 15 days away. I can make it. Yeah.

"all your life you were only waiting for this moment to arise"

Eighteen days until Thanksgiving break. Whee!

That's. . . that's just over two weeks! Whee!

I am so exhausted from NYC, and I'm going to have a busy day today and a busy week next week again. I have a presentation and two papers due at the beginning of the week, so I cannot slack off this weekend, but hopefully everything will be alright. I'm really tired and really ready for a break. I've been fantasizing about a real break from school since. . . uh. . . fall break? Yeah, that's the one. Fall break.

You know what time it is, ragazze (tu conosce la volta c'e). Oggi e venerdi! C'era una volta. . . once upon a time, c'era una nuova blog post per la Jesus College blog. Si! Non e uno gioco! Non schezzo! C'e una storia di mio viaggio in giro New York Citta dov'e le donne sono matte. C'e molto amusante (forze).

It was weird, because in NYC yesterday for some reason my Italian-speaking mode kicked in. I kept translating things in my head the way I did in Orvieto. Except I couldn't remember as many conjugations and words as I knew back then. But it was interesting to see how a city environment and the act of travelling caused me to rehearse my words in a different language just because of association with Italy.

I think a little bit of my head might be crazy.

P.S. Fun quotes from my world views class today, where Crystal Downing was the guest speaker:

"A friend said to me, 'the life well lived is the best revenge,' and oh my goodness it is so true." - Crystal Downing

"It's why I write so much. If I'm not analyzing literature and film, I'm analyzing all my friendships and my husband and it drives them crazy. So I have to write." - Crystal Downing

[Crystal Downing also related an anecdote about how no one in the secular world of graduate school meant to be insulting when they said, "oh, you're a Christian? I never would have guessed. You're so intelligent." I sort of wanted to jump up out of my seat and say, "Yeah, try being a home schooler! They don't mean to insult you when they say, 'oh, you're a home schooler? I never would have guessed. You're not actually mal-adjusted.' Gee, thanks. I love the compliment, there. Insult my family and my upbringing, but at least I'm not mal-adjusted."]