course correction

It's as if my life is a series of vectors, each a semester long. At the end of each segment I take my entire life in account--everything I have done, and everything I want to do, shuffle my life around, re-roll the dice and trudge on. Problem is I really don't know what all I want to do with the rest of my life. There are so many things I want to do, want to try. There are a number of things I'm good at, but I am really no closer to knowing which one I want to make a career of.

Unfortunately my school doesn't agree with such a laissez-fair take on life. You have got to know what you want, and get to doing it soon so you can start making money and living your life just like the rest of us. It makes me tear at my hair and shout from the top of my lungs "WHY!?" In reponse I get a mildly confused stare and "....because that's what you do.."

So once again I come to a pause, and ask my self "where the hell am I going?" I know that I want to help, I want to make the world a better place to live--but is that an education I can really get in school. Don't get me wrong, I love my poetry classes and I'm doing well in them. I hear almost daily from Jennifer what a wonderful writer I am, and I take for granted her (and everyone's) compliments. I know I have the potential for being really good...but I guess I wonder what the benefit is being good if I don't use it for good?

"Some of the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't..."
-Baz Lurman

Old Crow Medicine Show

this song has brought me home when I couldn't be there.

Wagon Wheel

Headed down south to the land of the pines
And I'm thumbin' my way into North Caroline
Starin' up the road
And pray to God I see headlights

I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I'm a hopin' for Raleigh
I can see my baby tonight

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me

Runnin' from the cold up in New England
I was born to be a fiddler in an old-time stringband
My baby plays the guitar
I pick a banjo now

Oh, the North country winters keep a gettin' me now
Lost my money playin' poker so I had to up and leave
But I ain't a turnin' back
To livin' that old life no more

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train
Hey mama rock me

Walkin' to the south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly
Had a nice long toke
But he's a headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee

And I gotta get a move on fit for the sun
I hear my baby callin' my name
And I know that she's the only one
And if I die in Raleigh
At least I will die free

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel
Rock me mama anyway you feel
Hey mama rock me
Rock me mama like the wind and the rain
Rock me mama like a south-bound train

Giving thanks

Football, Parades, button-front pants. I'm sure this isn't what the pilgrims had in mind. I'm also sure they had no idea that simply getting on a boat to get away from a England because it was "too loose" would cause such a mind-numbing frenzy of consumerism, feeding some primordial desire to get more stuff. It is ironic, if only a little, that the day after thanksgiving is marked by a nation-wide manhunt for the biggest and lowest deal, causing consumers to put themselves through tortures they would never normally put up with. Even still, something tells me that the very idea of thanksgiving was far from anything about a hundred sea-sick, starving people had on their minds.

But still, Thanksgiving is what it is. It is a day designed to say thank you for everything good that has happened to us this year. Thank you--it's a funny word isn't it? We aren't born knowing thank you; society has told us that we must be thankful for everything we get--whether we deserve it, have earned it, or if some cosmic probability pulled our number. Am I thankful? Absolutely. I am thankfull for my family who love and support me unconditionally. I am thankfull for my friends who are constantly at my side and at my back giving me a trusting place to fall. I am grateful that I am sitting comfortably in my home away from any real danger. I am thankfull I am not in Iraq, which saw one of the bloodiest days in the entire war yesterday.

I didn't ask for most of what I have in my life, but the truth is I am grateful. The truth of the matter is that we all understand gratitude, society teaches us how to express it--we just get so caught up in what we're excpected to do that we forget why we do it. Tomorrow, while you're shopping and someone holds the door for you say thank you. Then wonder why...

C-RAP

We Came.
We Cheered.
We Lost.

Our heads are still high.


This Saturday a huge group of our RA's met with RA's from five or six other schools from around the central area of California to talk about RA-related things. We went to each other's programs, bounced ideas off each other, and met new people. But most of all we all were competed for the coveted spirit stick. *cue the glorious choir music* The spirit stick was given to the school whose RA's had the most spirit.

WE ARE DYNOMITE! YES WE ARE DYNOMITE! AND WHEN YOU MESS WITH DYNOMITE, IT GOES tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic BOOM DYNOMITE!

Spirit. We got it.
However we evidenlty did not have enough.

Spirit was divided into four catagories: The Banner, The Roll Call Video, Philanthropy (CD's collected for a CD drive--whoever got the most got the award for best philanthropy), and actually spirit that day. It fairly unanimous that we had the best video ever. And as for spirit that day? Well it's like the video said--it was reckless. We were cheering, dancing, screaming, gyrating, and embarassing ourselves ALL DAY. We didn't stop; most of us lost our voices. Still it looks like the politics of "philanthropy" outweigh the ability to spell CSUN three-demensionally using people.

Still, the impression has been made. Our spirit on them, their ideas on us. I networked with a few RA's from other campuses and we're planning a multi-campus awareness program for the geonocide in Darfur. You can't get that without getting out and meeting new RA's. No we didn't win but when you leave with other schools saying you SHOULD have won, you know you've done your job. Next year that stick is ours.

Midterm

The amount of shit that went into that essay left me reeling for water for fear that I may die of diarrhetic dehydration.

Chi'Gong

Today in Tai Chi we being to learn meditation. My instructor doesn't realize what good time she has.