Now jaw hurts from power-chewing and vigorous Paradise Lost reading, resulting in more aggressive chewing.

Conclusion: when hungry and in a paper-writing frenzy, choose yogourt instead.

And my immediate answer was “no.” (It was for some pre-professional program. The girl looked fierce but not very relentless either.)

I haven’t been relentless in a long while. It may feel like that with busying myself running around, meeting-hopping and drifting into sleep in lecture on an empty stomach. But I know it’s not a valid kind of “lessness” of relent. It’s a pretense of the legitimate productivity and zoomzoom I know I’m more than capable of. That intense focus in the mid-years of high school where I thrived in absorbing as much as I could, thinking to the depth of the world and back and finding real meaning in all that I did. Loving life wasn’t a mere credo but a mode of existence. This semester, more than anything, I want to rediscover my academic drive, pull it out from under the bed, dust it off with some perspicacity and elbow grease and keep pushing forward. Oh, and ”pull up my socks,” as S says, which I still don’t think is a legitimate expression.

I finally made the decision to take a temporary leave from the band, Mr. D was more than understanding and his email response was so moving in its simplicity: a gentle, unassuming offer of support was really all that I needed. I’m really grateful I’m involved in groups that watch out for me and encourage me to grow, allow me the space when I need to.

I will figure myself out. The decision to be away from 5 hours of music-making was difficult and I will make it worth it in pursuit of the thing that I’m missing from my college experience so far, which I set out across the continent in search for.

I will be relentless. I will learn. I will thrive again.

In the meanwhile, need to look up and observe more of these posters/visual innundation.

In other news, it feels it will rain today. I will do my laundry and welcome this new Lunar New Year in the right motivated, fabric-softened mindset.

In other news, thanks to fantastico amigos for being there for me through all my weird bouts.

“When we die, we’re gone. But it’s our work that stays behind, that people remember.” And that one, awful but good punchline to the third penguin joke.

So immensely grateful to the one who made magic happen, who challenges me, who made me feel pure affection, and to the person who was the first I wanted to share the experience with, and who patiently lived a little bit of the afterglow with me.

And of course, to the magic himself. Thank you to the most immense “little man” I’ve had the luck of crossing paths with.

tiny bruise two giggles lower than my right collarbone

taste of sunflower seeds on my bottom lip

snow leaking into cuticles, between toes, gathering on the ridge of glasses, the part that meets the nose, caked into window edges

wind, frozen, rushing through soaked socks, warm

seeing a world through eyelashes and kneecaps and cold skin, glazed by foggy windows and snowballs caked into ledges and rooftops

states of being and embellishments of the body that are far removed from anything remotely poetic

but by which stand attested, a testament, to a life slowly lived through poetry

as though words and physical experiences were enough.

++++++

I think anything I write should be interpreted literally, minus all the cheesy fluff that drowns any meaning it had to me from it. I don’t wash my face well enough and I’ve had decreasing amounts of sleep. I’m rebuilding a collection of bruises from being clumsy. My better half always has a pile of sunflower seeds nearby. It snowed, last night, and P and I ran on the snow, he barefooted and me socked. Like the rest of this past week, it was wonderful.

So there you have it. This was the three-week week. So much assonance it blew WordPress’s mind. My sad attempt at fine-tuning my fine ear to the first week of this year. No? Alright. (Ear-year thing, thought I, brilliant was and happier far. Silly Milton syntax abound! Or abound silly syntax in!)

So this is what happens when you want to churn out a blog post while catching up on the week’s reading. Never again. (Next week.)

This week really felt long. It was long and yummy and really took a lot of energy to get through. It made me realize just how much time I waste (and still did this week!) when I could very well shop 7 classes in a day and be productive in each one, fully absorbing (or sleeping through) all the time slots without a break and still be a somewhat functional human being. Things are starting to pick up again and it’s been nice finding the groove with things, the silence that comes from visiting the library for the first time (on a Friday night, no less — oh yeah, pulling all the stops for this 3-day “pretend” long weekend, as my [fantastico] French professor calls it.)

sidenote: I’ve always wanted to use another language to describe someone directly associated with a different language than the descriptive language. So trippy. Fantastico usage de frang-nish. Or spancais.

I sound different. Maybe it’s the happy tiredness after a productive week of settling in cozily and excitedly into English major shoes (and finding myself swimming in novels with no life preserver in the form of fast reading speed and clarity of comprehension.) Or maybe that I’m reading more. Volume over quality, and loving how I’m absorbing all these different styles. It’s been a complicated week, too. New ideas and thoughts, propositions and sweet, sweet words from dear friends reunited, this time not the “can’t believe I’m halfway done freshman year and put on so much weight over winter break!” excited but more of the “put on even more weight this break and what major did you finally decide on?!” giddiness. People are growing up all around me, becoming more mature, savouring hugs for longer, not in way of flimsy greeting but understanding at an unconscious level that there’s more at stake. That we are collectively moving toward the midway point, realizing our responsibilities beyond the bliss of last year into a more serious, more deeply rewarding kind of experience. Same staring up at trees and wondering (and no, didn’t end up taking the Herbology-esque “Evolution of Plant Species + Lab” course for my science credit.) A different spin on the same questions. What is the underlying meaning to everything and how do I capture the happiness that I am offered every day into concrete actions of productivity and feelings, words I can concretely hold on to.

So yes, I sound different. But I hope you share in what I believe to be true: I’m definitely onto something possibly fantastic. It’s worth a visit into strange new way of hearing myself and familiarly vague introspections, if only for a taste of the real growth I’ve felt in feeling, for the first time, instinctively *comfy* in my course selections and decisively more secure in my choices.

Just another week in self-discoveries and midnight face-to-book bedtime impacts, both essential ingredients to the college experience and the immense growth that comes from getting to know myself, and for my cheeks, encountering the pages of Milton’s text, rather intimately.

voxtrot – the start of something

(aka my homework)

Dear World, I am an English major. Hello.

Please be kind. It might just be my biggest adventure yet.

from the darkest night shines the brightest lights. breathtaking. peaceful reflection and gratitude, perfect for closing a year of growth, self-awareness, happiness, and so much love.

goodnight to the last sleep of 2011. welcoming 2012 with an open heart, ready to carry the lofty dreams upon which hope and the exciting, frustrating, worthwhile uncertainty rests steadily on its wingtips. 

PS – Witnessed a huge group of Canadian geese this morning flying overhead in formation on their migratory path. The elegance and fluidness of motion, the notion of blind certainty based on instinct — so cheesy and so good. Nothing quite like it. Saw them through the window and felt like I was one of those nameless people uncredited in an apocalyptic movie, right before the ominous chords set in and something big happens. We ate breakfast. It was quite an event. :)

I think I realized more about the human condition in American Lit than my Sociology class. This quote from a discussion with my favourite prof is especially relevant to a lot of my thinking today, this past semester, maybe the end game for a lot of thinking in pre-teen days that didn’t seem to lead anywhere.

It’s good when thoughts find their home in something as beautiful and ache-inducing as this train of thought. Duly noted.