without me

current mood:
currently listening to: mic Jenkins -rain
currently reading: autobiography of my dead brother

shespawn & I were talking about the importance of recreational writing so I thought about meandering over here and here I am.

I guess I can start with updates of life in general. I have to say, it feels difficult & lonely to write just for the sake of writing these days. writing on an academic level gives me a focus and motivation that i don't get when writing for fun. I've tried several times to start a few things here and there, it just doesn't give me the same sense of purpose i once had. & that makes me sad as fuck.

so ... i'm on summer break rn, but in the fall i'll be attending my third semester of grad school. after that i'll only have one semester left & i'll have my master's in applied communication. i'd like to go for my phd, but i'm mostly interested in rhetorical criticism & iupui doesn't offer a program with that focus. however, they do offer a health communication program on the doctorate level & i am thinking that could be a great opportunity for applying rhetorical criticism from a medical standpoint, which is hugely important. especially when i think about working towards changing the rhetoric of drug addiction & how violence is perpetuated. so we shall see.

i hella excited bc i'll be teaching my first class in fall too. its an intro level public speaking course, and it's what I've been working toward as an ultimate goal for the past four years of my undergraduate career. eventually i'd like to teach a course on intersectionality, but that'll probs take a phd to swing so there's some hashtag goals to aspire towards i suppose.

speaking of hashtag goals, snookms & i have decided that instead of just buying another house once we become financially secure enough to get a bigger house, that we want to build an a frame cabin somewhere up north. i'd like to make it as self sufficient as possible and work at helping homeless communities achieve this as well for parties interested, but i may be biting off more than i can chew with that so i'll just have to take it a step at a time i guess. this has been the driving force for both snookms & i when the days grow dark w stress & other bullshit problems that surface bc LIFE. it's been a good way to keep us stringing along considering we STILL live in a two bedroom 1 bath after all these years & our three adult children have shared a room together and have yet to experience having their own room.

i mean, i'm thankful for all that we have learned in living in such close quarters w one another, like, so many survival skills regarding bathroom glitches & shit, but i feel like it might have some damaging implications on the kids. i feel bad about that. but i am always terrified that if we try to settle our life into something more expensive then we run an even greater danger of losing the house & becoming homeless the way my family & i did growing up. living in an emergency shelter was sometimes way more stressful than not having my own room. i guess i am being rather extreme and paranoid, but it's a lot easier for snookms & i to come up with the mortgage payment we have now when we are in a financial bind as opposed to how difficult it would be to come up with a grand for a 3 or four bedroom house payment, you feel me?

building an a frame, according to the research I've done on it, is a wise choice for more than just the monetary benefits. i guess the pitch of the roof, because its angles are so sharp, make for a more durable roof in harsh winters since the snow won't accumulate, and heating & cooling becomes less problematic during more extreme temperatures in summer & winter months. also says that it's smart on space bc you can get more out of the square footage due to the way it's built. but it also talks about the angles making it difficult to put anything against a wall. i feel like since snookms is a construction wizard and is always thinking outside of the box when it comes to building stuff that he can come up with some pretty awesome solutions to that, so i'm all for it.

i'm guesstimating that within the next two years we can start working towards this goal, because after i get my master's i'll be able to teach as many classes as i want, and i'll be getting paid more per course i teach, which will be a good opportunity to start saving on a massive scale. and i'll have a helluva lot more free time on my hands to help snookms with the building since i will be slowing down academically once i get my master's. i'll still be taking courses, but at a much slower pace than i currently am.

right now i'm taking three courses a semester and working part time in the women's studies office so having down time for anything is a huge challenge. i'm wondering how things will pan out for next semester since i'll only be working three hours a week instead of 15 with the whole teaching gig. i'm also wondering if I'm going to love it as much as i assumed i would all these years dreaming of becoming a prof. not that i'll yet have prof status, but still, it's a step in that direction, which is what I've wanted to do for so long now. i'm nervous as heck, i don't want to cross boundaries with students just for the sake of trying to inspire them to be their personal best, but i don't wanna be a boring ass instructor either. i really hope i can pull it off.

last Friday i went to an interview for a graduate assistant position for the research department of mentoring. i went mostly for the experience of interviewing bc i SUCK at face to face interactions, but once i got out of the interview i was like DAMN I'D REALLY LIKE TO HAVE THIS JOB. i'd basically be gathering data from grad students that are new to iupui to see what improvements can be made to the programs available there. i'd be doing research on more of a quantitative scale, which intimidates me sort of bc qualitative is where it's at for me, but the ladies that interviewed me said they'd walk me through the software that performs the necessary analyses for number crunching. and they said they'd show me how to do the whole survey monkey/qualtrics(?) thing, so it's all good.

i just recently found out that I've been approved to stay on as administrative support for the women's studies program, at least through the summer, but fall is still in question since there are a bunch of downgrades that are happing in the school of liberal arts with employment and everything else. before i had found out that i would be able to stay on through summer, i had applied for the graduate position to help supplement income at home for the short amount of time there would be between now & the start of fall semester, but when the director of WOST told me i was approved for more time i thought, well i guess i don't need to worry about this other job. but the director, who is also my academic advisor and a professor for at least one of my classes every semester bc i adore her so much, said that i should at least go to the interview for the face to face experience since she knows it's such a struggle for me. and i'm glad i went to say the least. if only i could be employed for both programs!

last Friday snookms had an apt w a neurologist and was put on klonopin for his night terrors and tremors he's had for the past 10 years. a few weeks ago he punched me in my sleep and i had a black eye from it so he decided enough was enough and sought help for the situation. the dr. said it's all anxiety related, & i'm like, 97% sure it's from all the traumatic shit he dealt with as a kid living with his abusive alcoholic dad and living in extreme poverty for the better half of his childhood. also having undiagnosed ocd didn't make (and still doesn't!) the situation any easier. i'm pretty sure snookms has ptsd, but he is having a hard time swallowing that pill bc there's this notion that it's a condition only war veterans can get. but i was like, nah, i was diagnosed w it, and you can even get it from going to a funeral one time when you're a little kid and getting freaked out from seeing a dead body. not that i was diagnosed w it bc of that, but my therapist had shared w me all the different ways it can manifest & i was shook to say the least. i'm hoping w snookms seeing this new dr. that they will work towards some therapeutic solutions that aren't just medicinally based, bc behavioral diagnostics can work mad wonders.

well it's late and mike jr is ready to start playing breath of the wild, so i better hit publish & start pulling up the walkthrough websites that show us how to get the master sword once he beats this next divine beast boss. wish us luck!

#tbt

current mood: 
currently listening to: flying lotus -camel (nosaj thing remix)
currently reading: trigger warning -neil gaiman

january 11th, 1992 pt. 1

current mood: 


currently listening to: all apologies -nirvana
currently watching:



i shivered uncontrollably while waiting on my mom to pick me up. scouring serramonte boulevard, there was no sign of the red minivan that would take me home. it was a place i was looking less & less forward to returning to as the years had gone by. the purple & green longsleeve shirt that my cousin bernie had lent me the night before did little to keep the chill out. i took another deep drag off my newport to distract me from the cold & the inevitability of my circumstances. the kid that seemed to steal the show at our AA meetings came sauntering out, more graceful than i'd expected him to move for someone who's world seemed to have been turned upside down. throughout the whole meeting he did nothing but express his admonition for how fucked up his home life was. he could have been physically beautiful to me, had i dropped the implicit ideals that had been forced down my throat throughout my adolescence about  what truly defined beauty. alas, his face was covered in scars, from what i gathered was acne; & he wore a plain black jacket that was 2 sizes too small for him & at least a decade out of style according to the members only club. he wore baggy jeans & his baseball cap twisted backwards, with some shirt he probably lifted from goodwill. this was typical fare for the skater scene back then, something i had not been a part of since i gave up riding bikes & playing nintendo for smoking out of bongs & getting dick.

something about his voice turned me on to him immediately when he spoke. he spoke with such confidence, such conviction ... about how much of a fuck up he was, & how his only plan in life was to continue to fuck up until he managed to sabotage everyone around him in his life that played a part in fucking up his life. i wanted to be him. i wanted to hold his hand and tell him everything was not going to be okay, but that we could maybe be together & that that would maybe make things okay in the end.

i was continually possessed wth fleeting thoughts like this about so many people that came in and out of my life, & if i had any regrets, i had wished that each & everyone of these individuals that i had fantasized about knew this about me. my ego had me believing that somehow my offering of sexual obsession would make up for every shitty thing that had occurred  in a stranger's life, & that everything would be magically perfect once they got an opportunity to get a taste of me & mine. i guess i was just that fucking clueless sometimes.

his voice was surprisingly deep. he kept his head down as he spoke for the most part. i allowed my gaze to linger any time i saw a chance that his eyes might meet mine, but the connection never took.

yet here, outside kaiser permanente, opportunity struck. he lit a  cigarette, & offered me his jacket when he saw me shivering like a dope fiend. my braids were flying everywhere in the wind, & i could smell the freshly dyed aroma of clairol brand's blue black still permeating itself into my scalp. i told him no thanks, it was an ugly jacket & again, 2 sizes too fucking small.

but he insisted & i wanted some part of him to be with me. i wanted his name to be something majestic, like ocean or some shit. he lived in pacifica, or at least that's where he claimed his stomping grounds to be. if i'm going to have a ritual fantasy with this stranger, his name's gotta have a ring to it.

he made eye contact with me, for a long time. i looked down nervously, suddenly becoming self conscious of what he might think of me had he knew what was running through my head.

"i really like your outfit", he gestured with the cigarette still in his hand, waving casually at my dickies pants & striped shirt getup. "do you need a ride anywhere?".

i would have loved to jumped in whatever vehicle he was going to be in & be taken to his world, but instead i squeaked that i was waiting on my mom to pick me up as i shoved my hand through the jacket he handed me. it smelled like smoke and nothing more.

i kept that jacket & that secret with me for years, & i bet if i looked long enough i'd probably find it stuffed away with the million & one other articles of clothing i have stashed away in our attic.

observations on the structure of reality

current mood: i
currently listening to: just want
currently watching: summer

rise from your grave

current mood: 
currently listening to: i'm god -clams casino
currently watching:



the halls, drenched with blood, lead her to her hate-filled destiny. she knows what is before her, for her path is arduous, her journey not light. the past has stopped. she leans more heavily on her staff, the girth of what she must bear now more cumbersome than everbefore.



the light fills her heart with hate, her children wail in protest & agony. the rays fill them with the angst of centuries old repression. serpents undulate beneath her skin with slow but deliberate intention. something courses through her veins, comparable to the repression of caligula's ageless malcontent, yet she cannot identify ... for the life of her ... what love is.

the confrontation begins soon. thorazin recalls the enchantments committed to her memory, fire traced paths of violence surge through her neural being, demanding for the birthright of their existence. fraught with perilous desire, she casts back her hood to reveal the velocity of her childhood. the only remaining relic to her past, she clutches the beating heart chained to her neck. whispering. chanting. freeing. liberating. imprisoning. rebuking. putting under her feet the exponential amount of suffering & damnation the blood of her blood has endured succession after succession. 

IT MUST STOP NOW. IT MUST STOP TODAY. THE TIME IS NOW UPON YOU. PILLAGE. RAPE. MURDER. DESTROY. DECEIVE. DO WHAT YOU MUST DO, UNTIL DUE JUSTICE PREVAILS UPON YOU. DO NOT CEASE WITH THIS RECKLESS ABANDON UNTIL YOU ARE DROWNED IN THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES, THEIR FOREFATHERS, THEIR CHILDREN, & THEIR HEIRS. ERASE THEIR EXISTENCE FROM THIS MULTITUDE.

the hate speaks to her heart & no universal joy could amount to the sheer ecstasy that is experienced in marrying herself to this union. her soul, oblivion. sold to the ferryman since she had possessed no coin for as long as she could remember. the adoration of her spawn would suffice. 

traces of crystalline light dust their way across the invisible path of her hate, smelling of ash. a compression spell comes to mind as thorazin takes soft padded steps through the thinly veiled dimension spread out before her. dark matter seeps between her toes & her breaths come in short ragged stabs. each inhalation further induces the gravitational pull required to complete the enchantment. in a few short steps she would be ... home.



clutching her cloak in her fingers, thorazin only now notices the debris that has accumulated at the hedge of her garment. anger once again seeps through her body, remembering. retracing. the footsteps would take her back to forever ago. the images she recalled led her to a unfamiliar spiral staircase, jutting out into nothingness. jovian planets could be spotted in the distance, their gases emitting toxins that would simply reverberate thorizin's vigor & send a surge of great power that would collapse an orbit in it's axis. this only teased her, sending knives of jolting rage throughout her being. how could it be put right before her, in this memory? this trailing memory led her, forced her to soldier on like the carrot dangled conveniently before the ass.

the celestials howled with cruel & mocking laughter. the chains thorazin would wrap around them would soon arrest their joy, & be replaced with the choking reality of temperance. their indulgence would be her victory. their foolish. fucking. desires.

make her one of us

current mood:
currently listening to: 
currently watching:



So I got a new fancy phone as an early Christmas gift... I've never had anything this fancy before... I can even take selfies without having to turn the camera around... pretty cool! Also, I'm posting this entry from my phone just to test it's efficiency in terms of blogging.  

To catch up... school is done for the semester. I'm relieved to say the least.  & I think I'm officially done having to take math classes ever again.  At first I was really glad about that?  But now I'm realizing how much I enjoyed the learning process. I got a C on my final for the class. Wish I could have done better,  but it is what it is. I got A's in my philosophy & comm theory class & a B in my English class. I got super lazy on my writing portfolios there towards the end & paid for it. Just glad that I only have a year & a half left before shit starts to get real. I was super proud of my final essay & presentation for my comm theory class. It really sucks that most everyone hates PowerPoint now because they are SO my freaking jam. I forrealz love doing them with all my heart. I focused on Brienne, Daenerys, & Cersei's characters and used standpoint theory as my critiquing artifact. I really fell in love with that theory the most out of the 30+ theories we covered in the class. 

Man I seriously can't get over how easy it is to navigate these here instanets on my phone! Maybe I'll even post another blog entry within the next century.

an incendiary act of clarity

current mood:
currently listening to: day of the lords -joy division
currently watching: the clouds float by



i remember as a child, seeing this scene for the first time & being paralyzed with the emotion of having finally identified the physical aspect of my relationship with myself. i hated my physical being so much so, that, i would seek revenge upon it when my emotions betrayed me. in conditioning myself to become numb, any emotion was sought out, entrapped, & destroyed. this was nearly an everyday process of the continued self-slaughter of my innocence.

i had no idea that my innocence would be the last one standing, the ultimate survivor, the ... "glorious victor" that would stand the test of time.

i can't help but bite my lip in anguished sorrow & lamentation when i see this scene now, as an adult. it hurt so fucking much to kill my insides. i have to sometimes excuse myself for the sake of hiding away my inability to overcome my grief.

i know better now, & i suppose that is all that matters in the end.

hate runs through my blood

current mood: 

currently listening to: goonies II, nes soundtrack

currently reading: the coldest war -ian tregillis

a few well-earned comforts

current mood:

currently listening to: my friend of misery -metallica

currently watching: bridesmaids

hooray for being on summer break!

i've been enjoying my extra time lately by catching up on cleaning, gardening, recreational reading, & going on hour long nature walks.

the good news is, I MADE IT THROUGH MY FIRST SEMESTER OF UNIVERSITY. i kinda surprised myself in realizing that i did actually make it through the semester. i mean, i didn't even realize that i had been doubting my ability to survive as much as i was, but when the wave of relief hit me the way it did when i saw my final grades? oh man, you don't even know! i almost starting crying because i felt so triumphant. people do this kind of thing everyday, so i don't know why i kept making it such a big deal. i kept it to myself how hard it was for me to adjust (for the most part).

socially, i realized that i am still very much a leper. but i do love how i bring out the undercover goth girl every semester in at least one of my classes. i imagine they feel drawn to me because of my appearance, but as i mentioned before, i really don't "classify" myself in that particular category or whatever. but they do, & as a result see me as somewhat of a social haven to confide in while getting through the semester. the friendships aren't super meaningful, but it touches me how they are willing to keep in touch as young as they are. & they also totally get me having a "family-comes-first-life". super important relational issues to be addressed here y'all.

so yeah, i got all a's in comm, philosophy, & history, & a b in algebra. i was sweating that algebra grade too, let me tell you. but i got an 83 on my final exam, & it replaced my lowest exam grade (which was a low c) so it all balanced out nicely in the end i s'pose.

let's see, movies i've seen recently or saw sometime ago & forgot to mention: ethel (an hbo documentary about robert kennedy, his wife, & children which i loved, loved, loved), go granny d (fuckyeah) iron man 3 (fuckyeah), oblivion (meh), hope springs (so-so), silver linings playbook (adding to my top 1 billion), perks of being a wallflower (same), zero dark thirty (left the theatre afterward feeling quite perplexed emotionally), & the new evil dead (disappoint). i'm totally sure i left some out, but those are the ones i currently remember most.

books i have on my tbr summer list: a song of ice & fire: book one, the second sex (simone de beauvoir), the feminine mystique (betty friedan), & the purity of heart is to will one thing (soren kierkegaard). all except the game of thrones book are due to my philosophy class & me wanting to dig a bit further. especially regarding existentialism! so fucking compelling.

the shows i've been keeping up with: nurse jackie (enjoying getting back into it far more than i thought!) the big c (blah, honestly), game of thrones (sigh, but i think i enjoyed seasons 1 & 2 more thus far), & that's really about it.

an exciting new place to hang out is the serenity tea room in zionsville. i was introduced to the place through ann, my communications professor & mentor. she hosted a paranormal lecture & investigation there one evening which my husband, spawn & i were invited to & i've been in love with the place ever since. mysty & i got to go there together & we were both in our full "goth-popcorn" gear & no one batted an eye at us. the two teas i am most in love with are serenity, which is the house tea, & then tranquility, which hails from their sister headquarters downtown. i have to put on the frowny face unfortunately when i mention the downtown franchise because i did not enjoy going there. snookms & i took a last minute adventure there on my last day of spring break & i was underwhelmed with the service, the tea, & just the whole environment altogether. it felt like a pretty privileged establishment, which is the opposite of what i felt at serenity in zionsville, & even tho the propylaeum is in a most gorgeous victorian mansion, i was not fucking havin it. not even a little bit.

well the spawn are hanging about like desperate alley cats, waiting for me to take them to the grocery store to buy junk food & come home & watch scary movies all night, so i guess i will check ya later.

the philosophy of time travel ...

current mood: (for dr. long)
currently listening to: 1969 -boards of canada
currently reading: homage to catalonia -george orwell

1. killing moon -echo & the bunnymen
2. hennin hardine -jucifer
3. maps -yeah yeah yeahs
4. orion -metallica
5. something in the way -thou 
6. stinkfist -tool
7. hidden place -bjork
8. hang me up to dry -cold war kids
9. 3 libras -a perfect circle
10. mad world -tears for fears
11. all we ever wanted was everything -bauhaus
12. nautilus -depreciation guild
13. fade to black -metallica
14. 2:45 a.m. -elliot smith
15. ziggy stardust -bauhaus
16. 1969 -boards of canada

i dreamt that i found my hat

current mood:
currently listening to: oblivion -grimes
currently watching: signs



just a quick rundown before i go to bed of my first week at the university ...

the first day was a fucking disaster-nightmare. i didn't have my books yet, i didn't have a parking pass yet, i had algebra, and the desks for that classroom remind me of something that snookms would beg me to sexually torture him in. they were so tiny i couldn't even fit my binder on them! the teacher is nice, but when he speaks i cannot comprehend because it is a completely foreign language that i have yet to decipher.

ironically, the next day was probably one of the best days of my life. i got my parking squared away, and because i made so many fuck ups about getting lost the day before on campus i was like a pro getting around this time. i had philosophy and looooooove the teacher, and my old friend rachel from ivy tech is in that class, so i was able to pal around with her instead of being by my lonesome self. i was further relieved by the fact that the professor said that the required reading for the class was not nearly as expensive as what was initially projected. alsoooooo, he was one of the contributing writers for the philosophy of star wars book that came out when episode III hit the theaters sometime ago. i guess he wrote on religious philosophical standpoint of luke skywalker? i'm curious to read it.

later that same evening i went to my communication class, and i was really nervous about parking because i thought i was going to have to park miles away from the usual parking lot since it is in the nurses building, but when i got there almost the whole parking lot over by the nurses building was nearly empty. the classrooms were much better this time, and there were tables instead of desks, so i had plenty of room to put my binder on the table. the teacher is amazing, and he spent most of the class on his facebook, showing off all the famous people he knew that were in his class. i even stalked his page when i got home & he is in a band that does rage against the machine covers, red hot chili pepper covers, and other such surprises which surprised me, because of his level of professionalism in the classroom. but at the same time, it didn't surprise me, because he just sort of has that melodic type of voice that most vocalists have. the name of his band is 'sugar moon rabbit'. it's not the greatest band, but at the same time, i thought it was kind of great because he took me by surprise with the rage against the machine cover.

the next day was my algebra class again, but this time i was prepared for just about the worst, and because of that it wasn't so bad. i wound up having to walk half an hour from the parking lot just to get to the campus, but i enjoyed the walk, and i was still pretty miserable about the shitty desk situation, but at least this time i knew what i was in for. i still felt lost about algebra about 10 minutes into the class, but i reminded myself that this was the pattern i dealt with regarding my last 2 math classes as well. i hate that my math classes don't transfer over from ivy tech, but at least it will give me an opportunity to play around and experiment with the theory i've been developing regarding why some people have a knack for numbers/math and others do better with letters/language.

today was pretty lovely for a whole bunch of reasons, but mostly i was just happy that my philosophy teacher acknowledged my joy division shirt that snookms & the spawn bought me for christmas. he said that the image on that particular album cover is so iconic that it automatically invokes a special sort of emotion in those that know what it is. the whole class was just him going over the "get to know your class better" survey he passed around from the day before. he took time for each student to address us personally and ask about the interesting things we had to list about ourselves. one of the ones i mentioned was playing old nes games, and he said that he just played some of his old games not too long ago. it. was. coo.l.

later in the evening i had my history class, and i found parking no problem again. there is still a bit of a walk to the campus, but i enjoy it very much. even if it is freezing ass cold. when i got to the classroom it was those same ridiculous desks again, but i was just like whatevssss this time and dealt with it. the teacher is a pretty basic dude, but he is an older gentleman, and hella handsome. he mostly likes to talk & get the facts out with hardly any feedback from the students, but that is okay in my book because i do like to listen.

i have another math class tomorrow, and that'll be the end of my school week until the next episode. so far the good far outweighs the bad, i just think i might get some extra help with algebra from a tutor or something. OR SOMETHING

& so, now here i am, at home, late as heck, everybody in bed, & i'm watching signs and wanting to cry like i do every time that one scene comes up where mel gibson is telling god how much he fucking hates him. GOD DANG DO I KNOW THAT FEEL

dear aunt beast, ...

current mood:
currently listening to:
currently watching:



ugh. shespawn woke up really sick, so i've been playing aunt beast since the middle of the night last night. i'm ready to crash for the night but i still wanted to work at making some sort of attempt at daily documentation before i hit the sack.

after carmen fell back asleep for the morning (in my bed, of course!) i snuck out & to the grocery store & bought tlc foods, like chicken noodle soup, 7-up, crackers. all that fun stuff. when i got home she was still fast asleep so i got to finish watching 'return of the king' on hbo. i got mega teary eyed like i always do when aragorn & his elf lady get hitched, & then when everyone started kneeling to the hobbits. by then i was bored & decided to make coffee for me & snookms & started cleaning & doing my daily devotional thingy. it was a boring one for the day & didn't really lift the dreary feeling i was carrying around because of the youngest being sick. but i soldiered on.

carmen woke up a few hours later feeling brand new, which cheered me up. plus snookms was being really sweet in that extra huggie way that makes all the difference when i'm feeling sad about my kids being sick. sad & overwhelmed, really.

we decided to brave the cold & slip out to exchange a blouse i had bought at jcpenney's in metropolis with the gift card money my mom & dad gifted me with for xmas. david also had one, so he wanted to check some stuff out too there. carmen started feeling like shit again so her & i sat in the shoe area until snookms & the boys were done looking at stuff, which didn't take long at all, & by then shespawn was feeling better. i spied a pair of white combat boots with pink flower print while we were waiting, & i want them with all my heart now.

david asked to go to his friend's house for the night so we dropped him off there, stopped & picked up one of mike jr.'s buds on the way, & came home. snookms took it upon himself to make a 3 hour corned beef brisket for dinner which was fine with me because i totally hate the idea of cooking on friday nights. i got really bored & decided to play a bunch of our nes games on the new retro console that we got mike jr. for xmas. first i played ghosts n goblins & only got to third part of the second level, right before you confront the second unicorn monster guarding the gate to the underworld. then i turned it off & played super mario 2, which i realized i hadn't played in hella long. i really sucked at it bad. it also didn't help that the controllers for that console are different and have the turbo action built in which throws me off big time. i got annoyed & decided to play contra & got a huge kick out of how good i was doing because of the rapid fire button & wound up beating it on my second continue. then i played adventure time until level 1-3 and then played mega man 2 and got bored after beating metal man, wood man, and bubble man like i always do.

after that i went back out in the living room where snookms was watching grid iron gang & i was like "oh hey i remember this flick, it's a good flick!" so we watched that until dinner was ready. i've been really cry-ey lately so the movie got me all choked up.

when that was over we ate dinner, joked around with the kids for a bit, then watched the new 21 jump street movie. it was pretty funny, but there was some parts that i was kind of 'meh' about, so whatever.

now the kids are all asleep & snookms is watching a boring cowboy movie that i don't care about so i guess i'll go to bed now & hope to be back here again tomorrow.

(p.s. i'm starting to get really excited about going back to class again!)

never-neverland

current mood:
currently listening to: ziggy stardust -bauhaus
currently watching: a wrinkle in time: the graphic novel -madeleine l'engle & hope larson

man oh man. i really & sincerely wish i could just post a blog everyday regularly. like poof, there it is! & i guess i really could if i would just stop worrying about everything else so much.

i've been going on nearly 3 weeks of vacation time now, & let me tell you it has been great! i'll resume getting up early and scholarly life on monday with the rest of my kiddoes, but for now i am just enjoying waking up at 1 in the afternoon & going to bed at 4 in the morning. and also cooking dinner at 10 or 11 at night. one of the best things in life right now for me is never having to rush about anything. I HATE RUSHING

so. things i have done. i saw the hobbit! and the avengers! & the newest batman. they were all great. i also saw lol, (loved) & ted (blahhhhh) and got to watch shespawn play skyward sword. & all because of christmas! christmas was really good this year. or, well ... last year, i mean. i got a lot of great loot. and so did the kids. and snookms. and we had a fun new years eve too.

for christmas from snookms & the spawn i got the graphic novel version of "a wrinkle in time", which i just finished and shespawn is now reading. that book has so many meaningful connections to me. my senior year was spent sitting alone in the school hallways during lunch with slaughtered & a warm place taking turns playing in my head & that book constantly being read over & over. this was basically the recipe for the imminent disaster you see before you now. having read the graphic novel version of that book has completed a very special part of my life that i had forgotten about & was by far, my most favouritest gift this year.

i also got finn headphones which are adorbs to the max, an owl that i promise you looks just like cosmic owl without any intention of it being so when snookms initially set out to get it for me. there was also a spirograph based gift under the tree for me which even has the mathmatical equations explained about how those things work in the book that came with the gears. talk about a blast from the past! speaking of blasts from the pasts, snookms, the kids & i took our wintery annual trip to the antique store & we found the holly hobbie lunchbox that i use to have from when i lived in seattle, washington as a first grader! it even came with the thermos, & snookms totally bought it for me which snapped my heart right in two, considering all the dough he had dropped for the spawn & i this christmas. i got it home, cleaned it all up, & am heavily considering using it as a purse/handbag/carry-all thingamahoozit.

3 bands shirts were unwrapped; joy division's 'unknown pleasures' album cover was pictured on one, pink floyd's 'the wall' another, & the smiths was the last. they all fit me perfectly too!

there are also superfancy hello kitty sunglasses that come in a really cute case, and spicy gumdrops and chocolate coins to talk about, but most of all i was just so excited that we all got to see 'the hobbit' for christmas. my brother even got to come along, which i love since we both geek out about tolkien stuff so much.

oh, i almost forgot about the nightmare before christmas snuggie too. that thing likes to suck the body heat right out of me, so much that when i take it off it's like i have to put it right back on or i'll freeze to death on the spot.

the kids all got a lot of really great stuff too, but i'm already getting bored talking about presents so i won't even bother with all that.

as of monday i'll be officially attending iupui. i am taking what mysty deems a 'football math' course but what i deem 'liberal arts' math because yeah, i suck that bad at math still and the classes i took at ivy tech do not transfer over unfortunately. also taking a intro to philosophy class, an 1800's history course, & a communications course to work towards my major.

i had a big fat scare on the last day of my classes at ivy tech with financial aid, but thankfully i was able to take care of it after much haggling and whining to the associate commissioner of the federal grant division about my lowly financial position in life & my inability to pay for what was a sad & simple fuck up on my behalf, but one that was potentially going to cost me over $1000.00 had i kept my mouth shut. basically, transferring from one college to another is scary fucking business, especially for me, and especially since i am a first generation college student at that.

oh! the honors symposium thing that i was invited to be a part of was probably one of my favourite parts of this semester. it was a huge success and i was honored to be presenting & pitching & conversing with everyone involved. all kinds of faculty came in to here me & 5 other capstone course students talk about what each of us are passionate about. there were deans, department heads, and all other walks of scholarly life weaving in & out of the room for the day. i talked to about 12 different professors, and shared with 3 of the fellow participating graduating students about the presentation i did at valparaiso. i was able to print out colored sheets of the powerpoint presentation at valparaiso & cut out the images to paste onto a display board that was issued to each presenting student. i had the pleasure of working on that the night before the symposium, all while watching 'stick it', which is one of my favorite movies. i spent the better part of the night sprawled over the top of the display board, trying to strategically place my images so that they would be both visually appealing while at the time being emotionally effective. i hadn't even realized it while i was there, but my communications professor had later pointed out in an email that i was the keystone speaker, which looking back if i base that observation strictly on position alone, was true. i'm not going to lie and say that didn't flatter the hell out of me, whether it was meant to look that way or not!

i think the thing i loved most about the experience was that i was able to talk casually with faculty that have long been advocates of what i am working towards and that they had so much to contribute to the conversation. i loved the encouragement that each professor gave me and that they had even taken the time to ask questions and further inquire about what i had to present. they treated me as their equal and nothing less, and that felt exhilarating.

i'm thinking that i've forgotten a million other things i wanted to talk about, and hopefully this will be enough fuel spark the motivational fire i need to get my ass on here everyday, so that i DON'T forget to talk about all the million and one things i wind up forgetting instead of just cramming it in one big long boring blog post. but now my elbow is tired from laying in a really weird position while typing on my laptop on my kid's bunk bed and also snookms is getting really lonely and i feel bad for that.

hopefully i'll be back tomorrow!

moliere really pumps my nads

current mood:
currently listening to: nausea -x
currently watching: 

oh man. i think i am finally caught up on every thing that i put on hold to go to the conference with the least amount of anxiety as i could possibly possess. i am here & present!

so the trip was everything i hoped it would be. it was funded, well planned, and successful. the drive took a little less than 3 hours. we had to go up north, just beneath lake michigan & around the corner from chicago. about halfway there we were surfing thru turbine nation. it was so fucking cool and creepy to see those things up close and personal for the next half hour worth of driving. rows and rows of mechanical monsters stretching across empty land for miles. the kids loved every second of it.

i had no idea what the city of valparaiso was going to be like, but i didn't really care tbh. i figured either way, the opportunity is what is knocking, right? we get about 10 minutes from our destination according to our gps, & the landscape takes a very unexpected rural turn, with a very ghost town kind of feel that had me gulping as the minutes passed. signs of civilization abruptly begin popping up and the next thing you know we're in a commercial wonderland of supertargets, kohl's, home depots, and shoe carnivals. i'm like, seriously? these are a few of my favourite things? the chili's restaurant is what finally did it for me. we pull around a wooded corner beyond all this and there is our beloved hampton inn.

i'm still trying to comprehend where in the heck an ivy tech would be amongst all this but it still does not compute. the hotel is brand new looking and the staff is friendlier than i am to my own children. we take the elevator up to the third floor where we find our cozy little 2 bed room and get our things settled in before we head out for a late lunch. red robins is what we all decide on after driving around for 10 minutes. i never ate there before this, so it was nice to finally try it out. i got battered fish and fries and am thinking i would have enjoyed it more if i would have just went with the flow and ordered a dang burger like everyone else does when they go there. it was okay i guess. the free refills on fries was pretty cool tho ...

once we were done there we elected to find ivy tech and at least drive past it to get an idea of how far away it was from our hotel. it was only like 2 minutes from red robins, and red robins is only 5 minutes from the hotel. my initial take on the campus was that it was really creepy. there were no students walking around the campus, and the parking lot comprised mostly of, other parking lots? it looked more like an industry typed setting than anything else. it was all very new and clean and shiny, but NOBODY was walking around, and it was only around 5 pm on a thursday.

the kids were anxious to get back to the hotel and relax, so i asked snookms if he could take me back once we dropped them off so i could walk around inside the campus to get a better feel for what i was up against in the morning. after we dropped the kids off, david (fezziwig) decided he wanted to tag along at the last minute so we left mike jr. & shespawn behind to their own devices and drove back. the building was very cathedral-esque looking. all white, with some pointy temples features jutting out on the roof. the inside was very impressive, but still, not really any students hanging around. i look for the room i'm to be presenting in with two other professors and find it easy enough. was super glad to have snookms & co. with me though, because i was feeling this really weird sense of isolation that would have creeped me out pretty bad if i was alone. you could definitely tell that everything about this city was brand spanking new. it was nice, but in that sort of 'a wrinkle in time' kind of way that isn't so great at all, initially. that all went away after time tho, i think it was just getting used to being in a new place since we haven't gone out of town in foreverrrrrr and a day.

once we made it back to the hotel the kids were ready to go swimming, so we got on our bathing suits and had fun going from the pool to the hot tub once we got there. there was even a little workout room with flatscreens and yoga balls. an old man with a zombie apocalypse shirt and perhaps his grandchild accompanied us while we where there, and an elderly couple replaced their presence once they were gone. i shoved the hotel room's key card in my bikini bottom thinking it would be safe and had to apologize for my hasty thinking when i had to go diving for it at the bottom of the hot tub they were in. luckily i found it and they didn't seem annoyed or anything considering that i had to come eye level with their jonx just to grab a hold of my lost key card.

after that we headed back to our room upstairs and took turns taking showers. by then it was dark and had just started raining, so we decided to head up to supertarget to get snacks for the night plus some eyeliner since i forgot to pack mine. again, everything is all brand new here, all of it squeaky clean and organized. at this point i was starting to get used to it, and also starting to experience delirium from lack of sleep i had gotten the past few nights. when i get to this point, i am pretty damn obnoxious. it's fun, you should see me sometime!

now we are back at the hotel, cozy in our beds and chomping away on midnight snacks. i have my laptop open, rehearsing my powerpoint presentation & just exactly how i want to say what i want to say. adventure time is on and i slowly dose off for the evening.

6:00 am is when the alarm goes off, and i am up with no problem. so glad to not have drowsiness slowing me down that morning. get myself all prettied up, rehearse the powerpoint yet again, and then start packing up stuff to put in the van since we decided at the last minute that we are going home once i'm done at the conference. downstairs breakfast is totally happening in the lounge and i am starting to see folks come out of the woodwork thank fucking god. i wonder how many of them are fellow presenters at the conference (which i later find out are most of them!) and worry that i am under dressed for the event considering most of them are fancily suited up. i mean, yes, i dressed up too, but more of a pantsy-black-goth sort of dress up. i even painted my nails black, which i hesitated on at the last minute just because, but decided to go ahead for authenticity's sake. but whatever, i couldn't be bothered with self doubt at this point. no choice but to soldier on.

the kids were delighted at the opportunity to make their own waffles, which i thought was hella cute that they were so delighted about it. i didn't have time for all of that, but i was able to grab an omelet, fresh fruit, yogurt, and some coffee. i loved that the hotel had free coffee available 24-7, as well as fresh cookies.

once snookms woke up enough, we were ready to go. i arrived an hour early, which gave me plenty of time to scope the place out some more and get acclimated with everyone & everything. right away i got to meet nancy, the editor of the atrium where my paper was accepted. she is the host of the whole icea ordeal, and she is way more friendly in person than i thought she was going to be. she seemed genuinely pleased to meet me, gave me my folder with my name tag, program and other such goodies in it and told me if i needed technology assistance to head up there to get it set up since i was to be presenting in the first session.

like i said, there were two other presenters in the panel with me, but we were in the first session for the day. the remainder of the day would consist of other professors and graduate students pitching their best-teaching methods for classroom environments. i took a few minutes in the lounge area to rehearse my shit for the last time, and then headed up to the room for the welcome portion of the event.

there were probably only 3 or 4 other students, all of them graduate students, and then all the rest were professors. i was the only person presenting there that hadn't yet earned a degree or an official teaching title. little fish swimming with big sharks alert! it was a super humbling experience. all along i kept wondering what the hell i was doing being invited amid all these experienced individuals. but i was there and whatever, no time to worry about all that.

the first two professors to present before me had multicultural insights about how to best reach a diverse classroom. i liked what they had to say about allowing code-switching in the writing process in order to encourage students to talk about things that are difficult to express. and also some of the reading material and the positive feedback the students provided as a result of reading 'the house on mango street' and other titles that i can't remember at the moment.

once it got to be my turn i didn't even bother looking up at the audience before i introduced myself. i glanced up quickly after i began speaking about my presentation and only stuttered over my words a few times. once i was done, the first question from the q & a session was directed toward me, asking what my professional experience was, and if i had any personal experience with the situation. the moderator of the panel had quickly read off a bio of info about each of us presenters, but it didn't really include in detail what my intentions were in being there at the conference. so it was a nice opportunity to share where i wanted to go with my degree, and during the luncheon, i had several professors come up to me and tell me how meaningful my presentation was to them, with one of them being personally affected by autism since his 6 year old son had it. i was really relieved to hear that because i was starting to feel really humbled by all the great ideas that were being thrown around by the other professors and graduate students during the conference.

my favourite panel that i attended was the one i chose to go to directly after i was done presenting, which was a modernized take on feminism, by Tolu Idowu, titled, "Not Just Semantics: Understanding Patriarchy, Unpacking Feminism, and Promoting Womanism". She did an impressive job of conveying the importance of including the male perspective in feminism, since more and more men are embracing feminism. Womanism is the new term she wanted to introduce in terms of eradicating the stigma of misandry that many are of the assumption of existing in feminism. everyone there was extremely enthusiastic to be there, and excited to bring their new ideas to other individuals that cared just as much as they did about best-teaching methods of instruction.

i loved that i somehow got to be a part of all this, and was even invited to attend the next annual conference, which i am seriously considering going to. and so now i am super exhausted from posting this elaborately long and boring post and will retire for the evening, glad that i got to document this experience for future reading and recollection.

if i look back, i am lost

current mood:
currently listening to: kill -iamamiwhoami
currently reading: rookie yearbook one



everything has been covered in this sort of "light at the end of the tunnel" typed glow, which is really lovely considering how rough things have been. i think it's mostly me just letting go of old shit so i can move on to new shit.

good news to report ... financing has been provided by Ivy Tech for the conference i'm presenting at in two weeks. also, have been accepted to iupui, so graduate school here i come. i took the placement testing and have orientation coming sometime within the next few weeks. and the icing on top of the cake (academically wise) is that on friday when i went to my lifespan development class i found out that me & one other student had the top scores on the exam we took last week, and according to my professor, the highest score-ers in her entire course, including the other colleges she is teaching at. this was really flattering because most of the students complain about how difficult the course is (which it is!) and the professor also mentioned that the exam i did so well on was the toughest of the 5 exams in the course.

it's nice to see desirable results being yielded; i feel as though i've been flat-lining path-wise for sometime now. was gettin real fuckin tired of lembas bread for awhile there.

the 3rd annual ghoul's nite out was a real success this year, even though there were far less in attendance than last year's get together. we started out at bw3's in greenwood, then headed to the asylum house, which moved from where it was these past few years, and then ended up at the keystone art cinema to watch v.h.s.

bw3's was okay i guess, i just ordered way too much food that i didn't like as much as i thought i would. i have a pathological aversion to onions, and when i ordered the sampler platter, i thought for sure the onion rings wouldn't be excessive, but they seemed to be the main attraction of the dish. i felt bad about wasting so much food! mysty managed to brighten up the evening by having us do a little speed mixer thingy to break the ice between fellow mysty worshipers before heading out to the haunted house.

since the asylum house had moved it's location, the set-up of the haunted house that we had become so accustomed to was changed of course. it was quite a treat however, as there were so much more outdoors encounters than last time. the majority of the adventure took place on haunted trails outside, and mysty enjoyed torturing me by volunteering for me to be the butt of just about every scene's attraction. i'd say the highlight of the evening had to be the mad hatter and his tea party that sprawled out before us once we were finished lurking the outdoor trails. there was a guillotine, the queen and us running for our lives after being threatened by her if we  didn't leave after the count of three. at this point we were all laughing and holding onto each other for dear life, and two chainsaw wielding actors were chasing us into a hopeless and endless corn maze. about halfway through the corn maze we were all ready to go see the movie for the night, so when we finally did make our way out, it was a huge relief. all in all i give the new haunt a 9 out of 10, only because it was a little too long and not enough actresses/actors jumping out at every turn during the corn maze portion.

we piled up in mysty's new car 'zeus' and stopped at walmart long enough for me to grab some pajama pants to slip in to since i had to go & period in my pants while the chainsaw dudes were chasing me. they literally scared the menstruation out of me.

it was a nice relaxing drive out to castleton, where the keystone art cinema is. i've only been to that particular theatre once before, which was with mysty as well, to see 'the runaways'. it is a superfancy theatre to me, it typically only plays independent films, and has a bar built in which recipients are allowed to bring alcohol in and consume while they watch the movie. again, we were going to see v.h.s., which i hadn't heard JACKSHIT about previously. turned out to be a super creepy/crappy first person perspective typed film, in which was an anthology of creative storytelling. none of the stories were woven together in such a way that made any sense in correlation to one another, kind of like creepshow, but at the same time, they just flowed together in such a way that made it okay enough to suspend disbelief. i think of all the stories, the first one with the amazingly adorable creature "i like you" girl took the cake, along with the paranormal doctor one. i mean, they were all equally engaging, but to me, those had the biggest creep factor of them all. i would definitely recommend anyone seeing this movie for a good halloween flick.

once the movie was over mysty & all the other ladies & i stood outside the parking lot, remembering the highlights of the night and having a bunch of good laughs. it's always interesting to see who the new flavour of the month is with mysty, and though there is a pang of jealousy that tries to invade my internals, i find the experience of learning about her through these individuals an enlightening experience. i am able to see a lot more standing outside of the relationship looking in, and am able to even learn a lot about myself as well, being this type of an observer. something like warmness has a tendency to take over when i see sincerity in a girl's intentions for mysty, which helps in the jealousy process to be able to let go and know that these other potentials can make her happy in such a way that maybe i could never offer her. they are all little flowers in her garden, each special & unique in their own way, which so many of us appreciate about mysty.

the rest of this week has been a roller coaster ride of teenage craziness with my own horde, but alas, fall break has come upon us to take away the dreary & weary. i am looking forward to tv night at my mom & dad's tomorrow, and it's been extra fun since my brother has been a participant these past few months as well. i've always felt a ridiculous amount of deep and heartfelt connection to all three of my brothers, so whenever i'm blessed with an opportunity to converse with them, more often than not i feel as though a weight of a thousand years has been lifted from my shoulders and thrown into an abyss.

i feel really lucky to have the family & friends that i do.