new year's eve.

i have been cleaning out my life, trying to get everything back in order before classes start again. i'm really close to finishing--my room is clean, my sheets and pillowcases are fresh out of the dryer, and the papers that have been littering my desk and floor are (almost) all filed away.
i don't think i'll go out tonight, even though there are currently three parties in progress to which i've been invited--but for some reason, i can't convince myself that it will be much fun to start the year drunk and then spend the rest of the day sleeping, or worse--hungover and awake. last year i spent the last half hour of 2009 and the first half hour of 2010 doing yoga and listening to jazz, and it was splendid, in a very nerdy-socially-awkward julie way. this year i think i'll get out my paints and work on the canvas that has been sitting behind my mirror for months (although, don't stress about my newly acquired antisocial tendencies--i'll be sure to join in with my roommates when they start making a commotion around midnight).
before i go, my new year's resolutions:
1) train for and run the 2011 portland marathon
2) kick my nail-biting habit
3) make a confident college/university transfer decision for fall 2011

i love you, anna and sue and vika, and tomi--if you're out there and reading. be safe tonight.
happy new year--xoxo, j.

on becoming a writer

since fall term ended about a week ago, i've been waking up, working, falling asleep thinking about writing. i've been sorting through ideas for essays and poetry and research, and i feel an energy that has eluded me for years. it simmers beneath the mundane, allowing me to dream and to feel alive even though the sun sets before five, and the majority of my day is spent in bed or at work.

i've always wanted to be a writer, and i've always wanted to be an artist, occupations that thrive in uncertainty and financial deprivation. to justify the expense of college, especially to parents who could care less about my education, i've felt pressured to choose something more useful, something more socially acceptable for a career, and to do the things that really move me--drawing, photographing, writing--on the side. but that whole "on the side" thing doesn't really work for me, because i want to be immersed in those passions, i want to breathe my art and the art of others. damming my passions, as i've been doing since leaving home, serves only to cut off my enthusiasm for life, leaving me apathetic and dull.

how could i have missed this? i've been staggering through depression for years, and if the most significant reason why is because i've missed my purpose, then this is it. this is the solution, or at least a valid way back to solid ground.

and, if money and material possessions really mean as little to me as i say they do, then the risk of dying as poor as i was born should not threaten me.

church

i went to the evening service because i worked all morning, and i slipped into the back pew fifteen minutes after it started. the whole time, i kept going back and forth between feeling like an outsider posed as an insider and feeling like an insider posed like an outsider. it was really unsettling.
i think i'll still try again next sunday.

winter weight.

i wish i could just be okay with what my body looks like, but--especially now, with the pre-finals weight gain starting to show--i can't help but loathe what i see. sigh.
the worst part is, i know that my thinking is just a product of a fucked-up society--i'm fine, i'm normal (whatever that means)--and somehow that doesn't help at all. when i weigh less than what it says on my driver's license, i should feel happy or something, right? but of course i don't, because then i only think about what it would be like to be, i don't know--five? ten? pounds lighter. but when i weigh at least five pounds more than that stupid laminated number (like now), then i covet the julie of two months ago that now appears so lithe, so beautifully thin in my memory.
come mid-january, when i start to look the same as i did mid-october, i'll forget the thoughts i'm having now, the ones that wish i would have been more happy and showed more skin with that sub-123lb body. instead, i'll keep scheming about how to make it even skinnier, more toned, and closer to the photoshopped dimensions of the girls in magazines. wtf?
i'm intelligent, and i fall for this shit like a dumbass. i don't get it.

i hurt, therefore i am.

someone get me to a low-cost clinic, please. i feel like i'm going to die. my entire right shoulder--from the bottom of my neck, especially through the shoulder blade, and into my bicep is shooting pain messages to my brain with ungodly speed and endurance. it hurrrrrrts.
also, the craziest thing happened to me today at work and i'm afraid to post it online, and i kind of want to say it in person, so maybe anna&sue should do a joint skype-session with me? it's a good story, i think. it'll be worth the trouble.

in other news, today i took the last of my exams and it feels good. i can't believe i made it :)))!
xoxo, goodnight (if i can get myself to sleep through the screaming shoulder..)
j

so close...

my last two finals are tomorrow!! and, after a career counseling appt on wednesday, my winter break will officially begin. i'm so excited to read and to clean and to cook and to work and to hang out with friends. aiiee. so excited.
my reading list:
--finish "anna karenina"
--"slouching towards bethlehem" by joan didion
--"one man's meat" by eb white
--"the unbearable lightness of being" by milan kundera (and, probably rewatch the movie because it's so fucking incredible)
and, (besides whatever else catches my eye)--

"the sexual politics of meat" by carol j. adams, my vegan neighbor's book that i promised to return two months ago. oops :) 

procrastination..

dear anna, i feel your pain.
i have two essays i have to write, one that is due tomorrow and one that is due tuesday, and i have noooo motivation. also, i'm hungry and my roommate's daughter just turned the kitchen in a play restaurant (in which she is serving her mom and a friend), so i can't exactly barge in there and cook up some mashed potatoes to go with "chik'n" nuggets and cucumbers and tomatoes..
sigh.
today i went to church, and it was alright. this was my second time going since i met paul at the coffee shop, and i think eventually it will become a habit. i don't know, sometimes i have doubts and sometimes i have hope about the whole god thing, but this church is pretty good and i feel comfortable going even though i'm not much of a believer. i don't know.

i'm a little bit scared that i won't get a B in french, and that's like the lowest grade i can afford. i think the instructor hates me for some reason, and even though i'm meeting with her tomorrow to see how i can finish strong, i doubt she'll be very flexible. sigh..
i think the restaurant game is over, actually, so i'm going to go make some food and then get on with my homework. i can't wait until this term is over.
xoxo, j.

happy thanksgiving.

it was lovely, thanks to my friend Ali, who invited me over and basically served me the most enormous (and delicious!) vegan meal of my life. so, today i'm definitely thankful for my friends, who let me know that i'm not alone even when i'm feeling slightly shitty.
i'm also grateful for my family, as always. i just got off the phone with mommy, and just listening to her voice and her stories made me feel so warm and alive.
lastly, i'm grateful for everything that has led to where i am now--for the Art Institute awfulness, the gas station job, the financial aid mess, and all my car troubles--all these things shaped me into the kind of person that might trip when life starts detouring in the wrong direction, but not the kind of person that falls and gives up. so, thank you. i'm a lucky girl.
happy tofurky day, world. xoxo, j.

finals week &other such messes

with everything that has been going on for the week or so--school/work/family/money/god--i've fallen a little behind with my progress in classes. french especially, but also russian and women's studies, and i'm scrambling to get it all together so i can pull out with mostly A's and hopefully no more than two B's. otherwise, i lose my merit scholarship and i will be screwed--very, very Screwed.

also, portland just got its first snowfall last night, and i missed french this morning because i was waiting my turn at les schwab, hoping they would fix my flat tire before class started (they couldn't do either--by the time class was nearly over, they let me know my tire was not fixable, and i had to buy a new one). sigh. plus, most classes are canceled tomorrow and through the end of the week--which should be a relief, but it scares me because i won't have much time to meet with teachers and figure out a week to finish strong.

but, i guess i'll just have to suck it up. if i end up with a list of bad grades and lose the scholarship, i guess that's that. i'll pay for the lost $500 per term with loans, and i will move on. college is not the rest of my life. eventually, these things won't matter anymore.

anyway, i think i'm doing better. everything still seems upside-down and i feel like i'm swimming through my life. maybe not even swimming--more like fighting the current that seems to be taking me everything i don't want to go. but i can't dwell on this. i need to chin up and move forward.

there is no meaning.

and sometimes that's terribly disheartening.
perhaps it's the season, the earlier sunsets and later sunrises, the rain and mist and fog--but all i know is that i'm having a hard time convincing myself that there is a purpose to be found in breathing. i thought i would leave this "meaning of life" shit behind in high school, but apparently it follows you around.
it makes me want to smoke a pack of cigarettes and fill a sketch pad with drawings of happy people and old buildings. i don't know what's wrong with me.

i would like..

to pull out my minolta and shoot some snazzy color photographs outside. but it's dark and rainy, and i didn't make enough in tips last night to cover the cost of film. perhaps i can try again tomorrow, but lately i've been waking up with just enough energy to shift my pillow before falling back asleep.

mid-autumn update.

i would love to say that the reason i haven't posted anything for the last month and a half is because i've been too busy enjoying my favorite season of the year to get online long enough to write.
alas, that has not been the case.

college has been kicking my ass. this term has been the heaviest course load i've had in the entire history of julie, and it's completely my fault. i'm so anxious to get done with school, to get my bachelor's so i could enter the peace corps, and then come back and get a master's and then maybe continue and get a phd. but you know what's so ridiculous? i don't even know what i want to do. i have such foggy career goals--all i know is what i DON'T want, which is a great start but not enough.
i don't want to work in an office, i don't want to sell things or otherwise promote consumerism, i don't want to work for a corporation (even a lovely one, like TOMS), i don't want to own a small business, i don't want to work in the medical field, i don't want to censor my opinions to better reflect those of my employer's, i don't want to ever use a powerpoint or wear a suit. okay, the suit is negotiable. but the rest, that's all i have going for me in terms of direction. which isn't very much, unfortunately.

so anyway, i've been having some deep conversations (well, deeper than most of the ones i've had since i moved back) about my life, and classes, etc., and here's what i think i'm going to do.
i'm going to work my ass off and learn as much as i can from all 19 credits worth of classes i signed up for this term. i need as many A's as i can get so my GPA doesn't drop too much, but i'll be okay with a few B's, as long as that's the lowest i'll go. i know grades shouldn't matter so much, but the scholarships i hope to receive to pay for my university transfer & grad school will be closer to impossible if i get any more C's. so this term is going to continue to suck, and i'll have to live with more sleep-deprivation and a close-to-flatline social life. but next term, and for the terms that follow, i'll try to keep my classes closer to 12 credits, and take it three classes at a time until i get where i need to go.
i mean, what's the point of hurrying? the economy is shit, and if i get my bachelor's in two years like most of my high school classmates, i'll just enter the flood of unemployed college graduates and still be broke, and still be directionless. so whatever, i'm not in a hurry anymore. i think i need to do this right the first time, figure out who i am and who i want to be, and graduate when i graduate.
this is fucking terrifying, so cross your fingers for me.
xoxo, j.

moving in, &other thoughts

let me start by saying, it is sooo nice to have a room of my own again. :)

it kind of sucks that i have to figure out what to do with my furniture & extra crap now that i don't have a full apartment anymore--but isn't that the best part? i have always lamented the fact that i just have so much STUFF. and i can blame it on mom &dad's hoarding genes or whatever, but i am still the one who ends up having to deal with the emotional weight of owning so much more than necessary at the end of the day. so i'm glad that molly is taking the living room furniture, and the other stuff--well, i'm going to donate or sell books i haven't read in a while, and i'm going to get rid of as many nicknacks as i can without feeling guilty (most were gifts). also, i've been hanging onto a lot of "practical" things like 90% used bottles of shampoo, hair care, etc., and i think i'll have to put a limit on how much i'm going to keep, then chuck the rest.

i feel so much lighter already, just writing about it. oh! (speaking of which,) yesterday i organized all my files--which means that at this moment, i know the exact location of every single important piece of paper i own. it's incredible.

it's just, i've always wanted to be the kind of person who can pack at a moment's notice &fly to morocco or brazil or iceland for a week or a month, and never worry about the stuff i brought with me or the stuff i left behind. i don't want the baggage (haha, both literally &figuratively).

okay, i think i should try sleeping again. sigh.. new place, new rhythm. it's so odd.
goodnight. xoxo, j.

back in my element

.. & it's odd. i miss home, & i'm broke. sigh.

august finale.

so this is it.. i'm heading back to portland in exactly one week, & i can't decide if i'm excited or terrified. so much has happened, & so much has stayed the same. goodbye soon, spokane.