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| Thursday, December 24th, 2009 | | 12:11 am |
| | Sunday, January 11th, 2009 | | 10:53 am |
| | Sunday, May 11th, 2008 | | 10:00 am |
Well, I graduated yesterday. This journal didn't really get to live out its purpose after a certain point, did it...I meant to use it to report on/stalk Southwestern, but in classically poststructural form (hehe there's an oxymoron), the college experience broke down and mingled and swirled with other areas of my life and other relationships, and the entries turned from voyeuristically self-assured to sadly fragmented. Sorry about that. Anyway, I have a degree now. I'm finished with college. I could write a lot about it, a lot a lot a lot, but I'll leave you with one little insight that I think sums it all up for me. I've been writing a page or more every day since January 1st and haven't missed a single day yet, which is a record. Here's an excerpt from what I wrote last night about the commencement: Dr. Tamagawa [my piano teacher, theory teacher, academic advisor, and the chair of the music department] just happened to be the professor calling out the names this year, and I walked across as his dear, familiar voice said those much-appreciated words -- "Meredith Raechel Orf, summa cum laude." The first three words were my parents' doing; the second three were mine; my privilege shows all over it.So those are the three facets: the forces that brought me into the world and influenced my childhood; my own internal drive and determination to make the most of my academic experiences; and the solidly privileged foundation that allows a white girl with Welsh, Biblical, and German names to earn Latin honors, indicating that most of my status really isn't my doing, and that I actually have a lot of recompense to make to people whose suffering results from my relative comfort. Time to get to work. | | Sunday, March 9th, 2008 | | 12:53 am |
| | Monday, March 3rd, 2008 | | 12:09 am |
belated survey, calm despair, all that
Can't sleep, and I've been wanting an excuse to post recently, so here we go. I forgot to do the year-end survey in December or January, but I'd still like to sum up 2007, and it's only been gone for two months. So the survey is under the cut. As for 2008, the main things possessing my mind these days are, in no particular order, 1) my impending graduation and the increasingly independent adult life that I'll be living thereafter, 2) how freakin' busy I am even though I'm a senior taking a light courseload, and 3) the fact that by recently breaking up with/disillusioning one of the people I love and admire most, I possibly made one of the biggest mistakes of my existence up to this point. I'm usually pretty good at justifying my decisions and learning from my regrets, but lord knows I've been doing a lot of soul-searching this week and I still wish that things hadn't gone down the way they did. If there were a rewind button, I would push it in a heartbeat, and you know that I don't usually say that. My stupid problem is that I don't ask for other people's advice until it's too late (i.e. I've already convinced myself of something or I've already delivered a fatal blow). But Natalie and Becca and Devin were right: making important decisions while extremely stressed out is a dumb way to do things. The lesson, learned the hard way, is that my emotions aren't always as rational as I think they are. Which could also possibly be applying to the present moment and all the insomniac self-doubting misery herein, but I've been looking at the long list of "incompatibilities" that I wrote (while stressed out and hurt, naturally) and it doesn't look like a lost cause anymore...just looks like a log of miscommunications and takings-for-granted. The difference between an immature relationship and a mature one is that the latter involves concessions, compromises, patience, frankness, acceptance, empathy. Even if she didn't want to try that hard anyway, I should have given her the option instead of taking the first train out of town. I can't even express how frustrating this is. Rest assured that the dead horse and I will be taking this flogging for a long time. My breathtaking stupidity astounds me. ( 2007 ) | | Friday, November 9th, 2007 | | 9:27 pm |
Daily updates are apparently still impossible for me right now, so I'll do what I can for the rest of the month, but yeah. I may take another hiatus after this post and see how much of a novel I can crank out, since I feel in a festively NaNoWriMo mood these days. The last entry got me into some trouble when I cross-posted it on Facebook and tagged my Mormon cousin. Not everyone agreed with my flawless logic, either, but that's because everybody jumped instantly into assuming that I was talking about desire, not social categories. Well, I was talking about categories -- identity. When a lady identifies as lesbian, for example, she is acknowledging that she has an overarching attraction to women...but if she falls in love with a man, is she a "fake" lesbian, or what? If she gets a sex change and becomes a man who's attracted to women, is she suddenly as "straight" as a biological man? All I wanted to bring attention to was the way that categories can start out helpful and end up limiting, but I guess everybody already knows that. The principle just isn't usually applied to sexuality, so I tried to change that. It makes for an interesting argument, anyway. On another note, time for a ( long and scary story. ) | | Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 | | 9:55 pm |
| | Friday, November 2nd, 2007 | | 11:47 pm |
Updating under the wire here...I guess I'll switch these entries between the usual musings, descriptions of recent conversations, and descriptions of more distant memories. Novels are kind of like that, so it's not totally out of line. I was walking back to my apartment after visiting the administration building today when I heard a shout behind me. "Orf!" It was MP. Bemused at being addressed by my last name, I slowed down and walked alongside him for awhile. We chatted about things, mostly our plans for next semester, and then we stopped at the crossroads where we would have to part ways. He was telling me about his job managing the box office, and some kind of drama between his student workers there. "You know, it's like characters in some kind of reality show, like The Real World or whatever...or some Woody Allen show where you just look at these people in their over-the-top situations and think 'what the hell?'," he said earnestly. I nodded, and he added that people's lives are like the sitcoms that occasionally cross over into each other. "It's like there's the Meredith show on NBC, and the Mike show on FOX, and sometimes they have crossover episodes. And everybody else in my life has their own shows, and their own cast of characters...it's like Sex and the City, where just a certain group of friends gets followed. I don't know who the guest characters in your show would be...maybe people from the Discovery Channel or PBS or something like that," he grinned. I smiled back at the dig; because I'm basically straight-edge, he likes to give me a hard time about being an academic fogey. The conversation made me think again about the Story, but I didn't mention it to MP. Comparisons to TV seem to jive with most people's experiences nowadays, and only English majors/nerds appreciate comparisons to literature. But the "crossover episode" concept is a keeper. | | Thursday, November 1st, 2007 | | 8:44 pm |
Oh, I don't know how novelish this will be. I wrote an entry for today, but it was esoteric and pretentious, and I'm really trying to get away from that. There are so many stories going on all at once, and I wish I could write about them all here, but I need to improve my discretion. Petty, funny things like relationship crises that don't matter in the long run; academic misadventures; beautiful little anecdotes (every piano lesson I teach); and darker things that even the infinity of time can't entirely engulf. It's interesting, what people hide. I feel like I've had a fascinating life, mostly because of good things. Some people have fascinating lives because they deal with so much trauma, though. I'd better not write any more today. | | Saturday, October 20th, 2007 | | 11:24 am |
I miss this. I thought leaving it would force me to write more for myself, but even that isn't happening...I'm just too busy, and I seem to come lowest on my own priority list. I think that for November, "National Novel Writing Month," I'll try again (the millionth time's the charm) to write in here every day. I'll just relate recent events or far-off memories in novel-style, because I think that would be fun. Does anyone still read this? (I'll write anyway -- someone will read it eventually.) | | Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 | | 11:14 pm |
I know I haven't updated in forever, but I'm weaning myself off it. I keep putting off making entries about major events, since then maybe I'll talk to you all more often. Not like I have time for anything anymore, ever. Less than a month since my last entry, and much has happened. Went out to dinner with N, and therein gained closure...he is taken, and he is not for me. Was hired to be the Head RA of the new apartment complex, which is terribly exciting...I can walk past the construction site and think that wooden frame, that concrete floor, will be home for me in a few months. Had a massive, highly successful dry 21st birthday party. Interviewed my dad's transsexual boss and got her fascinating story. Saw Naomi Shihab Nye again, listened to her give an incredible talk...she always outdoes herself, and was especially good for having to replace Alice Walker on short notice. And, as of a few days ago, I'm in a relationship. Did any of us see this coming? Hardly. Liz is amazing. We're pretty different in a lot of ways, but also very much the same, and we're just going to see what happens. I can't quite wrap my mind around the realization that I'm not single anymore. Turning off "the radar," as Mom calls it, will take effort; I'm used to looking at someone and thinking "maybe for me?" and it's a hard habit to kick. But this boy-of-a-girl has won me over completely, and I'm living in the present more than I ever was. I knew that I was putting myself out there when I began identifying as bisexual a few years ago, and now things will be infinitely more complicated. On Liz's advice, I'm going to wait awhile to tell Mom and Dad, since they would have a heart attack apiece. Everybody else...well. We'll see. I don't care. I'm pleased. She's amazing. | | Friday, February 16th, 2007 | | 2:32 pm |
Sorry about my Valentine's Day post...ah, things are so complicated around here. I've decided that one of my birthday presents to myself will be making time to start writing in a diary again. So these next few entries will be the last disgustingly introspective ones for awhile, I think. Also, then you people will be able to actually talk to me about my life, and I won't have to say "I already wrote about that in my livejournal...go read it." I'll still use this for reflections on the people and things at school, though...that's what it was really meant to be about all along. ( the trend continues ) | | Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 | | 7:41 pm |
| | Thursday, February 8th, 2007 | | 1:09 pm |
| | Sunday, February 4th, 2007 | | 7:38 pm |
February arrived, and it's a sign of how busy I am that I forgot to even contemplate resuming my update-daily-for-a-month. It was enough just to remind myself to write 2 instead of 1 when inscribing dates on class notes, and in the tradeoff I've started writing 06 (occasionally 05) instead of 07 for the year again, and having to correct myself. We are reaching critical mass. Lots to write about from this weekend, so I guess February is officially an update-sometimes month. Short version: I went on a date, on Saturday, for the first time in a long while. It was fun. ( Long version, for bored or inquisitive people: ) | | Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 | | 9:03 pm |
| | Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 | | 12:55 pm |
| | Sunday, January 7th, 2007 | | 6:34 pm |
Well, that month of updates-a-day sure petered out and died. I'm back from Paris now though, so I have regular access to the internet once more. Going to start doing a picture a week on the other account, so comment on it if you want to be friended...or tell me, or whatever... Sorry there weren't more updates about Paris...our last day is particularly worth describing, though. I'll section off this cut, since it's long and random. If you must skip around, at least read the "Feminism" part, all you jaded guys out there...you know who you are. ( cut ) Current Mood: ?Current Music: Joséphine Baker - Nuit d'Alger | | Saturday, December 30th, 2006 | | 6:29 pm |
Missed some days of updating...I'm in Paris, and the internet isn't as easily come by as one would think. So many adventures and mishaps, so much money spent, so many hours walking round in the cold, so many trains ridden and people bumped into, so much chocolate eaten...it's been intense. I would make a longer entry, but time is money here. This city is crazy. I love it, but only as much as Lima, or London, or Reno. What a world we have... Current Mood: je penseCurrent Music: traffic | | Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 | | 10:01 am |
New Year's is my favorite holiday. I give myself three fresh starts every year -- my birthday, the beginning of the fall semester, and New Year's Day. My birthday (in March) is a chance for me to pick up the slack on foundering January resolutions, and the first day of school is a good day to begin a last-ditch effort at rescuing my habits and reputations before the next year rolls around. I talk about myself too much, and that's something I plan to change. I think it's a result of overworking myself, as if I'm lost in a sea of goals and ambitions, and the person I really am can only find validation by continuously announcing herself to everyone else whenever she gets a chance to surface. I'm also more arrogant than I mean to be, and I've also figured out why this is -- I have pretty high self-esteem, so I defend myself to those who doubt me, and confirm my merits to those who already love me...maybe to keep from losing them. There's little room left for humility. I'll fix it, though. Anyway, here's an end-of-year survey I stole from another lj. It's redundant in places, so I'll take some questions out and keep it snappy. You guys should do it, too. ( 2006 departs )Off to Paris. Love. Current Mood: I need a vacation.Current Music: Mikey's new Rush cd |
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