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moonmachine
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Name: Sara
Country: United States
State: Arkansas
Birthday: 5/28/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: 70's, al green, bjork, bubble tea, camp, cat power, cherry garcia, cinema, clavicles, coleridge, depp, elliot, goldfrapp, gorey, ice cream, jon stewart, kafka, kitsch, lachapelle, lynch, photography, quirkiness, romantic poets, ryden, sigur ros, space ghost, tarantino, tea, wes anderson, yoko ono
Expertise: Histrionics and procrastination.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
MSN: whenshewasbad@hotmail.com
Member Since:
10/20/2004
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| Well, look at that. I haven't updated this thing since approximately
the Reagan administration. What a stirring testimony to my
procrastination and forgetfulness. You know I'm so mature and
well-adjusted, I always like to start the things I finish; I never just
wander off like a four-year-old with an expired Ritalin prescription or
anything. Nope. Not me. I'm responsible. Ahem. Yeah. So, four months!
What's happened in these four months?
On May 13, I graduated, with an exquisitely useless B.A. in English and
minor in Film. Even if I picked the most slackerly major known to a
slackerly generation, I'm still pretty proud of myself ... and even
more proud of everyone else who graduated this May. You know who you
are! I want to tape your diplomas to my fridge and show them to all my
guests! Congratulations!
My family is moving downtown, to a big old house that my parents have
spent the last month renovating (it really needed it, trust me on this). I think we're finally moving in during
this week. It will be a huge change of pace, from living in a quiet
neighborhood to living right smack-dab in the middle of the city. Wow,
I actually just wrote "smack-dab." Anyway. It will be nice to walk to
the main library, the Arts Center, the pizzerias and coffee shops ...
but it will take some adjustment to get used to the grime and bustle.
The house is enormous, and about ten times older than I am. If you
remember my incredible fear of anything stereotypically scary, you'll
understand why I'm not looking forwards to sleeping right beneath a
dark spooky attic, or having to walk down a creaky Victorian-era
staircase to get a glass of water.
But here's the most exciting news of all! I'll only be living in that
house for about two and a half months, because around the beginning of
August I'm off to New Mexico! That's right, I missed school so much
that I decided to fling myself right back into it ... I'll be
continuing my useless English degree in Las Vegas, New Mexico. This Las
Vegas is less focused on gambling and leopard print, and more focused
on sunny mountaintop climates, Old West history (Billy the Kid and
Jesse James used to hang there!), and lots of Victorian architechure. I
never really pictured myself in New Mexico, but now that I'm going, I'm
excited like the absolute dork that I am.
I'll have a teaching assistantship. The first semester I'll only be
tutoring in the writing center, but for the following semesters I'll
actually be teaching a composition course. I'm not sure how I feel
about that. It seems kind of early for me to be slipping into my
inevitable role as "that weird English teacher with the red hair." I'm
sleepless for nights before class presentations, so actually having to,
you know, educate people is
pretty intimidating. There are going to be some confused freshmen
wondering around the Sangre de Cristo mountains. So much for higher
education!
This will really be the first time I'll be officially living away from
my family ... twelve hours by car. I've been on long trips, of course,
but for the most part I've always been within fifteen minutes of my
parents, siblings, friends, et cetera. So I'm already starting to feel
nervous and homesick. But at the same time I can't help feeling curious
and excited ... I guess it's time for me to "go west young [woman]" and
try to stand on my own two feet. Heh. Being as clumsy as I am, that
might end it disaster, but I'll deal with it when the time comes.
So, yeah. There's my long update on my so-called life. If you've actually read all this ... hi, Mom!
What will I be doing this summer? Good question. I should be getting a
summer job, but since when am I productive or responsible? I'll most
likely read half the books the library has to offer, sleep in,
overindulge on my favorite snacks, run Blockbuster out of business, and
try to pick up on some Spanish. Have your people call my people.
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| Although I am inevitably hurtling towards rejection and a future of expectations that will be lowered until they bury me alive ... even a pessimist like me can be sitting at a desk, penning "New York NY" on a thick brown envelope, and feel a sudden spark of hope and excitement.
Even just pretending I could go to these places is exciting.
In other news, applying for graduate school now means that I'm too broke to eat or heat my apartment. These places charge a lot for the privilege of finding you intellectually inferior, don't they? Boy howdy. | | |
| Well, I have some very exciting news today. So exciting that I am as
giggly and hyperactive as a little kid. It's very out of character.
You're all sorry you missed it, I know.
I have a new apartment.
It's right on Kavanaugh, which makes it ideal for me. Although I'll
have a car by the time the school year starts, to shuttle me back and
forth from school and cut down on the times I have to be an annoying
pest and bum rides, living on Kavanaugh will let me walk. A lot. Which
is good, because I love walking: it's healthy, cheap, and entertaining,
all at once!
My lovely new apartment is directly across from the entrance to Allsop
Park. It's right down from Sufficient Grounds, maybe five minutes by
foot at the most. It's also right next to the Kroger's, the video
store, the post office, the laundromat, and so on and so forth. I've
always really loved Kavanaugh; that whole area of Little Rock is my
favorite part, next to downtown. Apparently it's very safe, too, which
is a bonus. I'm still sketchy on the whole self-defense thing.
It's a studio apartment, which means, yeah, it's basically just three
rooms, two of which are the kitchen and bathroom. But for a studio it's
pretty damn big (and I don't take up much room). My furniture will just
about fill it up. It has a nice kitchen, too, which makes me feel very
housewifely. I guess I'll have to start cooking.
I'm just basically a big dork about it. Slap me if you want.
I put down the deposit at one-thirty today.
I'm so happy, it's stupid.
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| I found this photo on my hard drive, the other night. It's the best
picture (ever) because it manages to look totally unlike me and yet at
the same time express the deep, harrowing, angsty turmoil of my soul.
Score.
I actually just like the coloring.
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| I'm not in Europe. Nope. Certainly not.
I haven't been in Europe for over a week now, to tell the truth. I've been hermitic, I know. I think that's just kind of my nature. But I do have good excuses! Which I know you're all dying to hear. Let me reel them out. First off, if you've never had jet lag, you can't imagine what it's like to recover from a seven hour time distance. It took me at least a week to stop waking up, wildly disoriented and scared, in my sister's bedroom. I kept on thinking I was in some kind of space station. This, of course, makes absolutely no sense. You'd assume, logically, that I'd think I was still in, oh, say, Graz, or, at a wild stretch, Vienna. Not outer space (which I have yet to visit). But such is my life, kids. Logic overlooks me entirely. So, it took me a while to overcome jet lag. You wouldn't have wanted to interact with me during my recovery process anyway, trust me. Take the way I usually am: spacey, absent-minded, sleepy, dazed. Multiple that by a number too high for you to even count to. That's what I'm like with jet lag.
As the cool kids say, good times.
My other excuse is a lot more interesting, and at the same time a lot more stressful. As you know I've FINALLY, at the ripe old age of twenty-one, moved out of the dorms. Don't laugh. Just be glad I escaped alive. If I'd stayed there another year I might have been stuck for life, attending wing meetings and participating in fire drills at the age of 92. So I'm glad to be out of the dorms, because, you know, I think it's a general improvement. But at the same time it means that, before classes start on August 22, I need to have a) an apartment and b) a car.
Since I didn't even start actively looking until a few days ago (me, lazy? surely you jest), you can imagine the kind of stress I'm under. It's a sort of pleasant and exciting stress but still. At a certain point stress is just stress, no matter how many adjectives you stick in front of it.
I'm one of those people who believes that talking about something good before it happens is, you know ... bad luck. So that's why I'm not even going to tell you about the apartments I found today, or the likelihood of me moving into one of them by this time next week. I'm sorry, but I can't shake my superstitious side. You'll just have to wait until the last packing box is safely moved, and THEN I'll tell you all about it. I bet you can't wait. Neither can I.
(I find out on Monday).
The car is still in the works. It's kind of frightening. I'm giving up a lot of luxuries moving out of the dorms, as crazy as that sounds. Before you have me tossed into an asylum (for "exhaustion," just like Lindsay Lohan!), please remember that I'm a girl of simple pleasures. For me the highest luxury is anything that allows me to be as lazy as possible. In the dorms I could sleep up to ten minutes before my class, and then go home and nap until the next one. With my new arrangements I'll actually have to be like the other 99% of UALR students and actually get up at the crack of dawn, navigate traffic, spend half an hour searching for a parking space, and then walk two miles barefoot in the snow. I'll also have to pay for gas, keep track of electric bills, find a nearby laundromat, and so on. Lots of new responsibilties. It's kind of overwhelming. But considering that I'm practically over the hill, it's about time. I can handle it.
I still feel as if I'm playing house. I still can't believe that I'm a senior, that I'm going to need to be studying for the GRE, applying to distant grad schools, working on my final projects and independent study. It's wonderful and horrible all at once. I half wish I was a little kid again, and I half wish I was already a rich old lady with nothing to do but eat chocolate and watch bad daytime television.
Because that's totally what I'm going to be when I grow up. Forget ballerinas and dinosaurs.
You all want to stalk me, and that's why I'm giving you my class schedule:
MWF 9:00-9:50 Intermediate German I
M 12:00-12:50 Career Perspectives
TR 9:25-10:40 Gender & Science Seminar
TR 4:30-5:50 American Literature
T 6:00-8:40 History of American Movies
I also have independent study and an honors tutorial that don't have their meeting times assigned yet.
I'll be seeing you kids around! | | |
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