Three Years Time

Sometimes we just need a change. Can you believe it's been three years since I cut my hair this short?

Blood, Kafka and some Rivers

Finally over the end of semester blues. In the end of August, I'll have been in Chicago for two years, and just one for how long I've lived in my apartment. Not to be hoagy, but time does go by a lot faster when you're not waiting for it. 

This week I'm left applying for jobs (I know--I should have been more proactive about it) and filling out cover letters for internships, as well. I have the entire week to do that, fit in some interviews and slip in some time to hang out with friends. I'm going to spend time this morning completely glued to my laptop. Since I've gotten my own office space, I find myself working more and more. Which, I feel pretty good about.

Here are some books I've got on ye-olde summer list. I'm currently breezing through Blood Meridian, which kind of makes me want to drop everything in Chicago and move out west with a few hundred in my back pocket, buy a beat up old mule and ride through the desert. But you know, that's not going to happen.  If anyone has any reading suggestions, please feel free to leave any. I'm open to anything.

Summer Resolutions

I was inspired by this video and although it's a few weeks after it's been up, I've been thinking about it ever since. Ways to better myself, to make sure I'm doing the best that I can, and to just better myself on a whole. So: here it is. Hopefully, my intentions putting it on here will help me stick to what it is that I hope to accomplish.

• Be nicer to people, and be optimistic about those I've just met.
• Healthier life choices: don't drink the entire bottle of wine, just because. Save it for later, for another dinner, for another time.
• Exercise every day. It makes me feel better, and I've let it slip because I had so much work, and that affected my daily life in a huge way.
• Don't laze around, get up, get going early and enjoy the sunshine. Or rain, or whatever.
• Write everyday. Take time to work on your own as well as giving feedback on others.
• Go out more, although that's hindered for a few reasons. Find ways to get around that.
• Make a tighter budget, follow that strictly. But also treating myself when I need it. Like buying a pair of cute heels.

I slept for 10 hours for the first time in a long time.

It's one of those mornings where the air is damp and chilly, and I'm in a sweater waiting for it to rain. Since a couple of weeks ago, I've started living alone, everything I own spread in the three habitable rooms in my apartment. It makes you feel thin and stretched out. But once I started taking all of my school and paper work out of my bedroom and moving it into what's now my office, everything's starting to feel in place. The emptiness is something I still have to get used to, without another person living here. That and I need to get shelves and filing cabinets. My books are piled up on the opposite wall of where I'm sitting, all of my old binders and notebooks shoved in the corner to the right of my desk.

Yesterday was my last day of work and school. I still have to drop off some student folders and a final assignment that my class had an extension on. Then I'm going to wander around Manifest (our college's end of the year celebration/showcase of student work) until five, and then I'm meeting up with a friend for some dinner. Then after that, a housewarming party. It's a busy day to say the least.

Summer's usually when I like to busy myself with a lot of work, personal and job-wise. Which, I'm still looking for at the moment. Every summer when I apply for a new one, I'm reminded about how aggressively you need to put yourself out there. Trying not to stress out too much about it, something will come. My music's too loud, I should probably go turn it down. I have a few of my friends' manuscripts that I'm going over and then a book review to work on.

I guess what I was mainly going to write about was something a classmate said of mine. I need to "be kind to my writing" over break. This past semester I kind of let my personal writing slip, I paid more attention to working with my tutees and spent more time on my internship. With that said, I pushed out a lot of material, but I guess the best realization I've had this semester has been wanting to teach. No real writing breakthroughs. Next fall I'm taking a Practice Teaching: Classroom course, along with a publishing one and my regular Advanced Fiction. Everything's crunching down. I have a year and a half left to study. That's kind of terrifying now that I think about it. But there we have it.

Cold Feet on a Saturday

 

Sometimes you have to read something over, and over again until it means nothing to you anymore. It's been a shitty two weeks, not going to lie. Between having carpal tunnel, the amount of work piling up that I'm not going to finish in a timely way (because of old bad habits, amongst other things), I don't know. It's buckling down to the last few weeks of the semester. I peeled off all the polish on my nails last night in the shower. I'm just rambling now. Here's a song for you, it's from Drive. I've been in the mood to watch it for awhile, maybe tonight's the night.